Advice From Eminem About Combating Addiction
[above3]
Source: Instagram / @Royceda59
You’re good friends with Eminem and also good friends with Joe Budden. Both men have struggled with addiction, like you. When you finally decided to escape alcohol, what were your conversations like with both Em and Joe, knowing their previous battles with addiction?
R59: Well, I talk to Em’ about it way more than I talk to Joe about it. Em and myself, we’re like actively pursuing sobriety together. It’s not often that he needs to call me and confide in me, but I call him all the time to talk to him about it. When you first get sober, you need to know that there’s somebody out there that can relate to how you’re feeling. That’s basically what Em provided for me. There was no story that I couldn’t go to him with where he couldn’t match me with an even better story, you know? That’s basically the concept of AA. That’s what those meetings are all about. Nobody is above anybody. Your addiction isn’t worst than my addiction. You’re a crackhead, you’re a heroin addict, and I’m an alocholic. I’m fine with that. Society looks at these things in a certain way, but we don’t, because we all have similar problems. We all been through similar things and the gateway is addiction.
Now Joe, Joe has been back and forth with battling addiction for a lot of years before I even met him. So he has a whole other take on it and how he likes to deal with it. I kind of stay out of Joe’s way when it comes to that. I try not to come off as judgmental to any of my friends. Everybody should be allowed to do what they do. Nobody knows Joe like Joe knows Joe. So I never judge him. When I see him, and he looks healthy, I’m happy. That’s pretty much all I can do.
In the past, when rappers like Joe and Em have gotten clean, fans sensed a decline in them musically. Do you ever worry about whether you might lose your edge and aggressiveness musically, considering you’re clean now?
R59: Yeah, I worry about it all the time. I think it just makes me human. I think it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to worry because the day I start getting bored and think it’s not possible to lose my edge, I just may lose it. So I think about it all the time and I just apply myself as much as possible.
[ad2]
