Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee recalled the lowest point in his drug addiction during the height of the band’s success.
“There was a point where, I was with my bass player, and we were just doing a s—t load of heroin and we ran out,” he recalled on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast Wednesday. “It was probably 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and we were like, ‘F—k what are we going to do?'”
Lee recounted him and his bandmate Nikki Sixx filling up the cap with whiskey. They “pulled a couple of syringes” and injected it into their veins, hoping to replicate the high of heroin.
“We were shooting Jack Daniels,” Lee confessed.
“At that moment, I went ‘OK, we could just drink this, but we’re shooting it. This is f—king wrong and somebody’s going to die.'”
The musician reflected on his and his bandmates’ years-long battles with addiction while being in the heavy metal band and how they would “eat handfuls” of sleeping pills and then go out partying.
“In 1989, we all decided we needed to go to rehab or someone was gonna die. We were zombies and people weren’t waking up. We were like someone’s going to die soon.”
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Despite their rehab stay and attempt to stay clean, Lee and lead singer Vince Neil celebrated the final concert of their “Mr. Feelgood” tour in 1990 at a local strip club, picking up right where they left off with alcohol.
Lee would go on to struggle with sobriety for decades. “I think three years is the longest I’ve done [sober],” he admitted to Shepard.
“I get so excited that I’m like, ‘Oh my god, dude, I’ve been sober for a year,’ and I celebrate. That’s the f—ing problem.”
In 2022, the rock star, 63, posted a penis pic while being on a “motherf–king bender.”
“A couple of weeks ago, we had like a two-week break off the tour, and I went on a motherf–king bender, bro,” Lee admitted onstage at the time.
“I got f–king sideways as f–k and got naked and posted pictures of my d–k.”
Lee’s last public trip to rehab was in 2019, following a severe relapse with heavy drinking.
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