Rapper Eminem on Monday celebrated 12 years since he got off drugs and alcohol, as he notched another milestone in his journey to attain a clean and health lifestyle.
“Clean dozen, in the books! I’m not afraid,” he captioned a photo of his sobriety coin, echoing a line from one of his biggest hit songs. The coin is stamped with the number 12 and framed by AA’s three legacies, “recovery,” “unity” and “service.”
The self-proclaimed Rap God ended years of addiction to prescription pills Vicodin, Valium and Ambien on April 20, 2008.
The artist has been open about his battles with addiction in the past, revealing he was once taking up to 30 Vicodin (an opioid that treats severe pain) a day as well as ‘anywhere from 40 to 60 Valium’ (a benzodiazepine that can help people be calm).
During the documentary How To Make Money Selling Drugs, Eminem said: “I don’t know at what point exactly it started to be a problem. I just remember liking it more and more.”
The following year, after a five-year hiatus at the peak of his career, a period that included a 2007 methadone overdose, the rapper released the album Relapse, his first attempt at recording after getting clean.
He would go on to address his near-death encounter with drugs on 2010’s Recovery. While in rehab, he detailed how a strict exercise and fitness regime had replaced substance abuse.
“I got an addict’s brain, and when it came to running, I think I got a little carried away…Seventeen miles a day on a treadmill,” he told Men’s Journal.
“I would get up in the morning, and before I went to the studio, I would run eight and a half miles in about an hour. Then I’d come home and run another eight and a half.”
