Limp Bizkit bassist Sam Rivers has revealed the real reason he staged a multi-year hiatus from the now-nostalgic nu-metal group. The admission arrives in rock writer Jon Wiederhorn's new book Raising Hell (Backstage Tales From the Lives of Metal Legends), which is out now.

"I got liver disease from excessive drinking," the musician divulges in Wiederhorn's tome filled with further stories from members of Slipknot, Pantera, Judas Priest and more.

Five years ago, Rivers reportedly took leave from Limp Bizkit because of degenerative disc disease. However, in Raising Hell, the bassist makes it clear that he bowed out of the band for several years due to the diagnosis with liver disease. Not to mention the subsequent liver transplant he received.

"I had to leave Limp Bizkit in 2015 because I felt so horrible, and a few months after that I realized I had to change everything because I had really bad liver disease," Rivers reveals in the book. "I quit drinking and did everything the doctors told me. I got treatment for the alcohol and got a liver transplant, which was a perfect match."

Elsewhere in Raising Hell, he continues, "I was diagnosed in 2011. I didn't really get what was happening back then. I stopped drinking and battled the liver disease for a bit. I got clean for about nine or ten months and went on tour. I was super clean, but my home life wasn't that great at the time and as soon as I got off tour I started drinking, and then drinking more. I fell right back into being a horrible drunk again."

Although the bassist was absent from the group for three years, he returned to Limp Bizkit in 2018. In Raising Hell, Rivers recalls the medical intervention that proved he was near death if he didn't change his lifestyle.

"It got so bad I had to go to UCLA Hospital and the doctor said, 'If you don't stop, you're going to die. And right now, you're looking like you need a new liver,'" the musician explains. "I fought liver disease for a couple years and it won. I had to get a liver transplant in 2017."

Ready to read more? Order Raising Hell here.

Jon Wiederhorn is the the co-author of Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal and Scott Ian's autobiography, I'm the Man: The Story of That Guy From Anthrax. He also helped pen Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen's autobiography and the Agnostic Front book My Riot! Grit, Guts and Glory.