Macklemore Opens Up About Sobriety and Relapsing During Pandemic

They also released “Irish Celebration” in December 2009 in anticipation of the release of The Vs. EP.[28] In March 2010, the duo released “Stay At Home Dad”, a track that didn’t quite make Vs.[29] In October 2010, they created the VS. Redux EP. “I think having that information [available, and knowing that there] is a community of people with the same disease is very important to [share with] young people,” Macklemore said. He told Kweli that he receives messages from some individuals who aren’t sure what to do for their loved ones. The song, a collaboration with Australian singer-songwriter Tones and I, touches on pivotal experiences in his life, including his 2020 relapse.

On February 24, 2023, he released a follow-up album entitled Ben. Following the March release of his latest album, Ben, the Grammy-winning artist joined the latest episode of health podcast On Purpose with Jay Shetty, where he revealed how his addiction started and how he’s grown on his path to recovery. The man who built his career on rapping about drugs or the things he did while on drugs is sober today. Em has vacillated between addiction and sobriety for years, and you can usually tell which songs were recorded sober and which he recorded stoned out of his mind. Em once told “VIBE” that he had to relearn how to record music sober.

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I can’t speak to what anyone else needs, but for me, it was going to inpatient treatment and 12-step meetings. Part of the 12-step literature states that we’re supposed to be anonymous. Because of that, there is an air of secrecy that comes with the program. But at this point, we’re in a very different time.

Despite Macklemore’s doubts that sobriety could be marketable in the rap genre, he found there was power in sharing his story. He believes that being open and honest about your experience allows others to feel safe to share theirs. Macklemore, whose birth name is Ben Haggerty, has recently been candid about his struggles with substance use and relapse. The rapper has partnered with CLEAN Cause, a sparkling beverage company, in the hopes that being truthful about sobriety can help others who are struggling with a substance use disorder (SUD). Last year, Macklemore revealed that he suffered a drug relapse in 2014 and had previously relapsed in 2011. He said he started taking pills and smoking weed again.

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About 25 minutes into the interview, the conversation shifted to Macklemore’s experiences with addiction and recovery. It’s easy to assume that Lecrae leads a straight-edge lifestyle because he’s a Christian rapper. “I tried pretty much every drug there was to try,” he explained to “Complex.” Lecrae left that lifestyle behind and now refrains from drugs and alcohol.

“It was within two months of my COVID relapse, and the disease of addiction is crazy,” said Macklemore, whose real name is Benjamin Haggerty. Appearing on the Armchair Expert podcast on Monday, the “Thrift Shop” rapper discussed his relapse with Shepard, who sober rappers is also a recovering addict. Common is well known as a conscious rapper who advocates for love, peace, and all things pure. So it makes sense that Common lives a drug-free life. Despite being connected to the mainstream party culture, Common parties clean.

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Over the years, Macklemore continued to put a spotlight on his own experience with addiction by bringing awareness to substance abuse in the U.S. In 2018, he performed at Recovery Fest in Rhode Island, a drug- and alcohol-free concert formed to support organizations helping combat opioid addiction. I know that addiction is a treatable disease, but I’m never going to be cured, and I’m completely fine with that. The world that recovery has led me to is beyond anything I ever could have imagined. I would never have had a career in music had I not been able to go to treatment.

With the young rapper increasingly entering the spotlight, he was consumed by the allure of sex and a variety of drugs, spiraling downward from the abuse. At his father’s behest, Macklemore entered a 35-day rehab program in the summer of 2008. The album was released on January 1, 2005, with its lead single, “Love Song”, being announced the same day. “Love Song” featured singer Evan Roman, and was produced by Budo, who would later go on to produce several more tracks for Macklemore. The musician — born Ben Haggerty — opened up about relapsing during the pandemic after being 14 years sober and revealed how he found a path back to sobriety. “For me, the most important thing to learn in recovery is that I’m powerless over drugs,” Macklemore told the outlet.

Macklemore says ‘not staying sober has been the worst’ part of his music career

“I had been lucky enough that I had already been to rehab,” he said. “I had already understood that this is the disease of addiction. This is an incurable disease.” He admitted he didn’t figure out what the root of the addiction was until recently when he found “a community of men in recovery,” especially those who had experienced “sexual trauma.”

• I was drinking excessively and smoking a ton of weed.
• Individuals in the series are shown sharing their unique, yet universal stories about the benefits of sobriety.
• While he considers being a dad his “greatest success,” the musician also said he knows that his kids can’t fix him.

These unhealthy habits caused him to feel as if he had lost the will to live. A former drug dealer, 50 Cent is sufficiently knowledgeable about the adverse effects of drug abuse. “I had an experience with alcohol that made me paranoid because of it and I stayed away from it,” 50 told Piers Morgan. In an interview with G-Unit, Tony Yayo confirmed that 50 Cent abstains from drugs and alcohol. There is guilt and shame around the disease of addiction.

“To me, it’s the truth, and I want to acknowledge the systems in which we operate under in America,” he said in the magazine. “We are all under the system of white supremacy, and I do benefit from the color of my skin in numerous ways, and that plays a factor in how I have an advantage regarding my art and concerning my career.” He ultimately got sober in 2012, and is a father of two daughters, with his second born last year. The 36-year-old rapper initially posted a picture of himself alongside his wife Tricia Davis’ mother, Diana, as the pair took a break from shopping and eating in Paris to capture the moment on camera. He may rap about blood and gore, but Tyler, the Creator says “no to drugs, I never spark it.” The Odd Future leader has a strict stance against drug use, despite being surrounded by it.

I had kind of lost the will to live at that point. I first took a drink of alcohol when I was 14 years old. I stole it from my parents’ liquor cabinet, which was above the refrigerator. I had one shot and I wondered what two would feel like. And then I had two and I wondered what four would feel like.

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Name it, and your favorite rapper has probably rapped about it. Yet the stereotype of the drug-addled rapper doesn’t apply universally. Several dinosaurs are out there living by the https://ecosoberhouse.com/ drug-free, or straight edge, code. Many rappers abstain from drugs and alcohol for personal and/or professional reasons. “Sobriety is not a daily struggle, but it’s a daily effort.

• We need to get people into treatment and CLEAN Cause is doing that, and I’m excited to be a part of it.
• Part of the pair’s appeal is their innovation and reliance on ideas and lyrics that go against much of hip-hop’s traditional swagger.
• Macklemore’s and Lewis’s second album, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made, was released on February 26, 2016.
• “I relapsed during the first summer of COVID,” he wrote on the clip of himself.
• He then teamed up with producer Ryan Lewis, and the two went on to have huge success with their debut album, The Heist, and the singles “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us,” with millions of copies sold.

In 2021, Macklemore did an interview on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. During this conversation, the artist confessed that he had experienced a relapse in the year prior. Macklemore has shared that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to his relapse. He found that he was losing focus as his 12-step meeting became Zoom meetings.

Macklemore Says His Recovery from Addiction Means Knowing He’s ‘Powerless Over Drugs’

Join a recovery support group of people just like you. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, drug overdose deaths in the United States hit a record high of 93,331 in 2020. Rapper DMX is in the hospital after a heart attack and alleged overdose.

• He eventually attended Garfield High School, the alma mater of musical luminaries like Quincy Jones and Jimi Hendrix.
• Additionally, the US saw the highest number of recorded overdose deaths, over 100,000, for any 12-month period last year.