Life is funny ain’t it?

Last night, while I was working my overnight editing shift as the @parlourmagazine Grandaddy watched some gospel DVD featuring Bishop Eddie Long — I know, right? — I stumbled upon a pretty interesting Eminem interview. I’ve never been the biggest Eminem stan, he can rap for sure but after his second album, I tuned out a bit and really only paid attention when I had to for journalistic purposes.

However, Rolling Stone did a pretty open and honest interview with Em this week about the day he overdosed on methadone, a substitute for heroin addicts trying to recover, and Elton John of all people being his Narcotics Anonymous sponsor. The doctor’s told him he’d done enough to equate four bags of smack.

‘I remember I got the methadone from somebody I’d gone to looking for Vicodin,” Eminem said. “This person said, ‘These are just like Vicodin, and they’re easier on your liver.’ I thought, ‘It looks like Vicodin, it’s shaped like Vicodin – fuck it.’ I remember taking one in the car on the way home, and thinking, ‘Oh, this is great.’ Just that rush. I went through them in a couple of days, then went back and got more. But I got a lot more.

My whole month of December leading up to [the overdose], I don’t remember shit. All I remember is I was not able to get out of bed. At some point – I don’t know if it was the middle of the day, I don’t know if it was nighttime – I got up to use the bathroom. I was standing there, trying to take a piss, and I fell. I hit the floor hard. I got back up, tried again – and boom, I fell again. And that time I couldn’t get up.

I’ve never really talked about it with anyone in detail, because I don’t want to know. They say I made it back to the bed somehow. I don’t remember that. All I remember was hitting the bathroom floor and waking up in the hospital.

The first thing I remember is trying to move, and I couldn’t. It’s like I was paralyzed – tubes in me and shit. I couldn’t speak. The doctors told me I’d done the equivalent of four bags of heroin. They said I was about two hours from dying.

I think I’d been out for two days, and when I woke up, I didn’t realize it was Christmas. So the first thing I wanted to do was call my kids. I wanted to get home, and show them that Dad’s OK.

On Elton John being his sponsor:

“I speak to Elton [John]. He’s like my sponsor. He usually calls me once a week to check on me, just to make sure I’m on the up-and-up. He was actually one of the first people I called when I wanted to get clean. He was hipping me to things, like, “You’re going to see nature that you never noticed before.” Shit you’d normally think was corny but that you haven’t seen in so long that you just go, “Wow! Look at that fucking rainbow!” Or even little things – trees, the color of leaves. I fucking love leaves now, man. I feel like I’ve been neglecting leaves for a long time.”

Read the rest of Rolling Stone‘s chat with Eminem.

ps. Did you know Em’s raising not only his daughter Hailie, who’s 14-years-old now (does this make anyone else feel old?) but two adopted daughters: eight-year-old Whitney, his ex-wife Kim’s daughter from a previous marriage, and 17-year-old Alaina, the daughter of Kim’s twin sister. Makes you think of him a bit differently right?

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