In It Starts With One: The Legend and Legacy of Linkin Park, the book details the late Chester Bennington‘s addiction “battle” and his final months alive.
Penned by Jason Lipshutz, the Linkin Park frontman was 41 when he died by suicide in 2017. According to his widow, Talinda Benning, Chester “had been sober for almost six months” in the lead-up to his death but that he struggled with substance abuse problems throughout his adult life,
According to the book, Bennington had privately revealed to others close to him that he’d been fighting the urge to drink again. At the time, Ryan Shuck, the guitarist and backing vocalist of Chester’s side project Dead by Sunrise told Rolling Stone that “in the weeks leading up to his death” “he was describing an hour-by-hour battle with addiction.”.
Following his passing a toxicology report confirmed Chester had trace amounts of alcohol in his system when he died.
Now 48, Talinda said “I knew instantly that that drink triggered that shame,” adding the relapse would have “triggered a lifetime of unhealthy neural pathways.”
In an extract from the book, obtained by People, its author concluded it would be near-impossible to determine exactly what drove Chester to take his own life: “There are no easy answers, and there never will be.”
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Author: Al Denté
Photo: Ron Schendorf from New York