Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea has opened up about his history of substance abuse and how he resists the temptation of drugs.
“I started smoking weed when I was eleven, and then proceeded to snort, shoot, pop, smoke, drop and dragon chase my way through my teens and twenties,” he wrote in an op-ed for TIME.
The 55-year-old musician said he got clean in 1993 at the age of 30 – but continues to struggle.
“Temptation is a bitch though. All my life I’ve gone through periods of horrific anxiety: a tightness in my stomach that creeps up and squeezes my brain in an icy grip. My mind relentlessly whirring, I can’t eat or sleep, and I stare into a seemingly infinite void of despair, a bottomless pit of fear,” wrote Flea. "Ouch. Man, drugs would fix all that in a flash.”
Flea said he has learned to be grateful for the pain in his life.
This pain includes a broken arm he suffered a few years ago in a snowboarding accident. Flea said his doctor gave him a two-month supply of Oxycontin.
“The bottle said to take four each day. I was high as hell when I took those things,” he recalled. “It not only quelled my physical pain, but all my emotions as well. I only took one a day, but I was not present for my kids, my creative spirit went into decline and I became depressed.”
Flea said medical professionals need to be more discerning and there needs to be more programs and services for people who get hooked on prescription medication.