At the height of his drug and alcohol addiction in the 1980s, Billy Idol doesn’t consider himself “to be a drug addict anymore.” since getting sober after nearly losing a leg in a motorbike accident in the 1990s.
Born William Michael Albert Broad, the now 68-year old superstar pop/rocker told People magazine:
“I really started to think I should try and go forward and not be a drug addict anymore and stuff like that.” “It took a long time, but gradually I did achieve some sort of discipline where I’m not really the same kind of guy I was in the ’80s. I’m not the same drug-addicted person.”
Calling himself “California sober”, where he no longer drinks or does hard drugs, but does consume marijuana, the UK-born musician added:
“I just tell myself I can do what I want, but then I don’t do it. If I tell myself I can’t do anything, I want to do it. So, I tell myself, ‘You can do anything you like.’ But I don’t actually do it.” “I mean, AA would say, ‘You’re always a drug addict.’ And that may be true, but I don’t do anything that much anymore. I got over it somehow. I was really lucky that I could get over it because a lot of people can’t.” “A lot of my friends from the old days are sober. (My guitarist) Steve Stevens is sober, and (guitarist/singer) Billy Morrison in my band is sober. There are people around me who are sober. That helps a lot.”
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Author: Saul Goode
Photo: Billy99wew