Em taking a nap on Proof while on tour busInserts out of a Vibe Magazine
Interview from 2009
It’s no secret I had a drug problem. I just don’t think my fans knew how bad it was. When I went to rehab in 2005 I went in for a sleep problem, or I guess a sleep problem is what I thought it was. But it was a drug problem and I wasn’t ready to admit it. I was taking Valium, Ambien, and Vicodin. Valium, Ambien, the numbers got so high I don’t even know what I was taking. I barely made it through that Anger Management 3 tour [Summer 2005]. I got by on the skin of my teeth. I had a rehab doctor that was seeing me through to where I could just take enough to not get sick and be able to sleep at night. The whole idea was, Get me through the tour, through these last couple of weeks, and then I’ll check myself in.
When I went into rehab everyone else was ready for me to go, but I wasn’t. Rehab was a really bad experience for me. Just being a celebrity and s**t, I felt like a fish out of water. It was like, I don’t have a problem. Everybody else has a problem. I’m a grown man, I should be able to do what I wanna do. That’s the things that addicts go through in their mind. I stayed in rehab for probably two weeks—then I checked myself out.
Needless to say, I relapsed. I started taking Vicodin the week after I got home, so I was probably clean for three weeks. Then I started back with the NyQuil. I had a problem with NyQuil even though it’s an over-the-counter thing, it’s a serious trigger for me. I’d try to knock myself out but sometimes if you drink too much it would have the reverse effect and keep you up. So I’m right back on the phone with the dopeman trying to get Valium or whatever I could to sleep.
The problem was bad already, but when the Proof thing happened, it got really bad. It’s not an excuse to use drugs, but man, if I ever had a reason…. It was an excuse for me to just say, f**k it. I just went all out with it. It got worse and worse to the point where I was getting it from anywhere I could. I had friends—or so-called friends—that were using the same s**t that I was. They’d give me s**t and I’d stockpile it.
So one day, this was right before Christmas of 2007, I got ahold of some pills. Somebody gave me some pills that were blue and they were shaped like Vicodin. I went to him looking for anything with codeine in it—Tylenol 3s, 4s, but they gave me these blue pills. They told me, Take these, these are just like Vicodin, only they’re easier on your liver. I remember taking one in the car on the way home, and I was like, Whoa, this is f**kin’ great. I didn’t even ask what it was. I’m like, This makes you mellow and it’s easier on your liver? I got a new drug of choice.
Within a day or two I was back askin’ for more. This time I probably got 15 to 20 of ’em. I think that day I took half. Toward the evening, I remember not being able to get out of bed. I literally couldn’t move. People said that I was actin’ weird that day—actin’ real slow and s**t.
I think I slept from 3 in the afternoon ’til 10 o’clock. That’s when I remember waking up and I couldn’t move. I was like, f**k it, I’ll just lay here. I woke up the next day at noon. I literally slept all the way from 3, 4 in the afternoon ’til noon the next day.
So I get up and I’m like, Okay well, I’m straight…I’m gonna take more. I took half the first day, then I took another half the second day. And the last thing I remember is trying to use the bathroom. I remember standing up to take a piss and I just fell over backward. Smack my back on the trash can, break the trash can. And I get up again, and this time I fall over the other way, to the side. I remember that the bathroom floor was cold. And I remember trying to crawl over to a rug. I got to the rug, and that’s the last thing that I remember. There are some things I have to keep to myself when telling this part of the story for personal reasons.
I woke up in the hospital. The doctor told me those mysterious new pills were methadone, which is used to wean heroin addicts off dope. Had I known it was methadone, I probably wouldn’t have taken it. But as bad as I was back then, I can’t even say 100 percent for sure.
I wasn’t only depressed about Proof, I was depressed about my music in general. All I was taking was downers, strictly sedatives. My mood made my music depressing. And in turn, the depressing music made my mood depressed. My brain was thinking slow. My flow, my cadence, everything was just slow. Every record that I made was, Woe is me, and my life is so f**ked and everything is wrong....
I overdosed, and I was in the hospital for a week detoxing. My doctor told me the amount of methadone I’d taken was equivalent to shooting up four bags of heroin. Even when they told me I almost died, it didn’t click. I was pretty much in a coma for two days. All I remember was just peacefully sleeping and waking up in the hospital like, What the f**k is going on? There’s tubes in me, there’s all kinds of s**t in me.
When you’re told you almost died, in an addict’s brain, this particular addict was thinking, Well I didn’t die, so I’m okay. WHEW! I got lucky. Thank you, God. God, please just please get me through this and I’ll never use again. But lo and behold…
The official word was I had pneumonia. Thing is, I really did have pneumonia; I had taken so many pills that my immune system wasn’t functioning right. They told me that if I’d gotten to the hospital two hours later, I would have died, because I f**ked my kidneys and liver up so bad. My kidneys had almost completely shut down. They were ready to put me on dialysis. -Eminem
When I went into rehab everyone else was ready for me to go, but I wasn’t. Rehab was a really bad experience for me. Just being a celebrity and s**t, I felt like a fish out of water. It was like, I don’t have a problem. Everybody else has a problem. I’m a grown man, I should be able to do what I wanna do. That’s the things that addicts go through in their mind. I stayed in rehab for probably two weeks—then I checked myself out.
Needless to say, I relapsed. I started taking Vicodin the week after I got home, so I was probably clean for three weeks. Then I started back with the NyQuil. I had a problem with NyQuil even though it’s an over-the-counter thing, it’s a serious trigger for me. I’d try to knock myself out but sometimes if you drink too much it would have the reverse effect and keep you up. So I’m right back on the phone with the dopeman trying to get Valium or whatever I could to sleep.
The problem was bad already, but when the Proof thing happened, it got really bad. It’s not an excuse to use drugs, but man, if I ever had a reason…. It was an excuse for me to just say, f**k it. I just went all out with it. It got worse and worse to the point where I was getting it from anywhere I could. I had friends—or so-called friends—that were using the same s**t that I was. They’d give me s**t and I’d stockpile it.So one day, this was right before Christmas of 2007, I got ahold of some pills. Somebody gave me some pills that were blue and they were shaped like Vicodin. I went to him looking for anything with codeine in it—Tylenol 3s, 4s, but they gave me these blue pills. They told me, Take these, these are just like Vicodin, only they’re easier on your liver. I remember taking one in the car on the way home, and I was like, Whoa, this is f**kin’ great. I didn’t even ask what it was. I’m like, This makes you mellow and it’s easier on your liver? I got a new drug of choice.
Within a day or two I was back askin’ for more. This time I probably got 15 to 20 of ’em. I think that day I took half. Toward the evening, I remember not being able to get out of bed. I literally couldn’t move. People said that I was actin’ weird that day—actin’ real slow and s**t.
I think I slept from 3 in the afternoon ’til 10 o’clock. That’s when I remember waking up and I couldn’t move. I was like, f**k it, I’ll just lay here. I woke up the next day at noon. I literally slept all the way from 3, 4 in the afternoon ’til noon the next day.
So I get up and I’m like, Okay well, I’m straight…I’m gonna take more. I took half the first day, then I took another half the second day. And the last thing I remember is trying to use the bathroom. I remember standing up to take a piss and I just fell over backward. Smack my back on the trash can, break the trash can. And I get up again, and this time I fall over the other way, to the side. I remember that the bathroom floor was cold. And I remember trying to crawl over to a rug. I got to the rug, and that’s the last thing that I remember. There are some things I have to keep to myself when telling this part of the story for personal reasons.
I woke up in the hospital. The doctor told me those mysterious new pills were methadone, which is used to wean heroin addicts off dope. Had I known it was methadone, I probably wouldn’t have taken it. But as bad as I was back then, I can’t even say 100 percent for sure.
I wasn’t only depressed about Proof, I was depressed about my music in general. All I was taking was downers, strictly sedatives. My mood made my music depressing. And in turn, the depressing music made my mood depressed. My brain was thinking slow. My flow, my cadence, everything was just slow. Every record that I made was, Woe is me, and my life is so f**ked and everything is wrong....
I overdosed, and I was in the hospital for a week detoxing. My doctor told me the amount of methadone I’d taken was equivalent to shooting up four bags of heroin. Even when they told me I almost died, it didn’t click. I was pretty much in a coma for two days. All I remember was just peacefully sleeping and waking up in the hospital like, What the f**k is going on? There’s tubes in me, there’s all kinds of s**t in me.
When you’re told you almost died, in an addict’s brain, this particular addict was thinking, Well I didn’t die, so I’m okay. WHEW! I got lucky. Thank you, God. God, please just please get me through this and I’ll never use again. But lo and behold…
The official word was I had pneumonia. Thing is, I really did have pneumonia; I had taken so many pills that my immune system wasn’t functioning right. They told me that if I’d gotten to the hospital two hours later, I would have died, because I f**ked my kidneys and liver up so bad. My kidneys had almost completely shut down. They were ready to put me on dialysis. -Eminem
PEACE
S
-Just as an FYI incase you didn't know because I didn't until I got Relapse last summer that in the mist of all of his drug use he had lost his very Best Friend from childhood, Proof. They both resided in Detroit together, grew up together, and worked together since they both started rapping in their teens. They also were in the group D-12 together. If you listen to every interview, every mag article, a lot of songs on Recovery, that Eminem is still horrible grieving I feel and states that Proof that was the only person who got him. Feels lost without his Best Friend who was tragically killed in 2006.
Eminem spoke at his best friend Proof's funeral where he said "without Proof, there would be no Eminem, no Slim Shady and no D12." The service sheet said the two men shared the "friendship of a lifetime."
He also dedicated the album Relapse to Proof but only mentioned him a few times in the album, unlike Recovery where he is mentioned heavily in almost every track and even if he's not mentioned in a track you can still feel that this album is his therapeutic way of trying to still figure out life without him.
Relapse Album Dedication to Proof-
Proof,
No matter how much time passes, not a day goes by that I don't think of you.
If it weren't for you, I would not be where I am today and we both know it.
I tried to write song for you but nothing was good enough,
so I'm dedicating them all to you-and you'd be happy to know that I spazzed out
on 'em gain! I know you wouldn't have it any other way! Fuck 'em all--let's get 'em!
P.S. I'm sober now, I know you'd be proud.
I love you Doody, I'll never forget you.
Love, Doody
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