Eminem Speaks

(album: Fighting Demons - 2021)

[Eminem:]
I think once I took my first Vicodin, it was just like, this feeling of "Ahh"
You know, like everything was not only mellow, but didn't feel any pain
It just didn't–, it just kind of numbed things
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 fucking person out of here, I can't believe they said that shit to me, they know nothing about my fucking life, are they out of their fucking mind?"
I'm not out there shooting heroin, I'm not out there fucking, you know, putting coke up my nose, I'm not smoking crack
You're struggling with the argument of "Do you have a problem, or do you not have a problem? Can you control it, or can you not?"
And I literally thought I could control it
You're taking things that people are giving you that, you don't even know what the fuck they are
They look like a pill, and they look– they're shaped like something that you take, so you take it, you know?
Xanax, Valium, tomato-tomato
You know what I mean? It's th-the same thing, it's all in the same family, fuck it, take it
Had I had got to the hospital about two hours later, I would've died
My organs were shutting down, my liver, kidneys, everything
They were gonna have to put me on dialysis, they didn't think I was gonna make it
My bottom was gonna be death, within a month, I had relapsed
And shot right back up to the same amount of pills that I was taking
I remember just walking around my house and thinking every single day, like, "I'm gonna fucking die", like, I'm-I'm looking at my kids, and I need to be here for this
Coming off of everything, I literally was up twenty-four hours a day for three weeks straight
And I mean not sleeping, not even nodding off for a fucking minute
Like, I was literally just up, like, looking at the TV
I had to regain motor skills, I had to regain talking skills
It's been a-a learning process, like, it's been, I'm growing
I just couldn't believe that anybody could ever be naturally happy, or naturally function, or be just enjoying life in general, without being on something
So, I would say that t-to anybody that i-it does get better, you know? It just– it does