S. Samuel
Grammy-winning rapper Eminem takes fans into his early days as a drug user and the type of effects he experienced in a new documentary called How To Make Money Selling Drugs.
According to reports, Slim Shady delves into his past interest in taking drugs despite being he may have developed an addiction.
“When I took my first Vicodin, it was like this feeling of ‘Ahh.’ Like everything was not only mellow, but [I] didn’t feel any pain,” Eminem says in the film. “I don’t know at what point exactly it started to be a problem. I just remember liking it more and more. People tried to tell me that I had a problem. I would say ‘Get that f—–g person outta here. I can’t believe they said that sh– to me. I’m not out there shooting heroin. I’m not f—–g out there putting coke up my nose. I’m not smoking crack.” m tells director Matthew Cooke that his addiction to prescription meds quickly spiraled out of control, as he began mixing pills — “Xanax, Valium, tomato, tomatoe, it’s same thing … F— it, take it,” he says — which eventually led to him being rushed to the hospital in critical condition. “Had I got to the hospital about two hours later, I would have died. My organs were shutting down. My liver, kidneys, everything,” he says. “They were gonna have to put me on dialysis. They didn’t think I was gonna make it. My bottom was gonna be death.” (MTV)
Within the film, Em credits family, notably his children, for helping him kick the destructive habit.
The rapper admits that “within a month” of being released from the hospital, he had relapsed, and was convinced his addiction would kill him. But he found strength in his role as a father — “I’m looking at my kids and [realizing] ‘I need to be here for this,'” he says in the film — and got clean through a grueling, self-imposed detox. “Coming off everything, I was literally was up 24 hours a day for three weeks straight. And I mean, not sleeping, not even nodding off for a f—–g minute,” he says. “I had to regain motor skills, I had to regain talking skills. It’s been a learning process, I’m growing. I couldn’t believe that anybody could be naturally happy without being on something. So I would say to anybody ‘It does get better.'” (MTV)
A couple years ago, former Shady Records artist Cashis talked about Em extending a hand to help out with his own drug addiction problem.
“First time I met Em, in the studio in Detroit, I had a vial of like 80 Valiums and I popped em all in like a day and a half. He was like “D*mn, dog you might wanna get some help. Let me know, I can help you out, discretely,’ ” the rapper explained. “I was like ‘Nah man. Where I’m from, what would I look like?’ I got off it my own, and later on, I found out — like the rest of the world — Em was getting off of it. During that time, I just quit talking to everybody dog. I didn’t talk to no friends, family.” (Baller Status)
Back in 2010, Slim Shady said his past drug woes had a damaging impact on his music-making abilities.
“I had to learn to write and rap again, and I had to do it sober and 100 percent clean. That didn’t feel good at first…I mean it in the literal sense. I actually had to learn how to say my lyrics again — how to phrase them, make them flow, how to use force so they sounded like I meant them. Rapping wasn’t like riding a bike. It was [as much] physical as mental. I was relearning basic motor skills. I couldn’t control my hand shakes. I’d get in the [recording] booth and tried to rap, and none of it was clever, none was witty and I wasn’t saying it right…It was four or five months after I’d been clean when I started to get a glimmer of my writing skills back. I don’t remember what song I was working on specifically, but I do remember getting feeling back in the music. I realized I wanted to do this again.” (New York Post)
Check out the documentary’s trailer:
