Marc Stamas/Getty Flavor Flavor
Flavor Flav explains how his drug addiction controlled his life.
After celebrating two years of sobriety in October, the founding member of Public Enemy, 63, said he ‘never really let people know exactly’ what was going on with him at the height of his addiction then that he appeared last week on Off the Record with Podcast DJ Akademiks.
“There was a time when I was spending $2,400 to $2,600 a day…for six years straight, you do the math,” he said. “That’s how much I spent on medicine.”
During the worst periods of his addiction, he was spending almost a million dollars a year on drugs.
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He also sold and drew from his own supply.
“I’m not going to lie, I sold a lot. But I was my best customer…I also had a lot of money back then, I was just doing bad things with my money,” Flav recalled.
Flav, born William Jonathan Drayton Jr., explained that he “held himself very well” while using and “hid it too”, but that he finally managed to stop abusing him. substances and begin their sobriety journey in 2020.
“I guess God wanted me to live. And he knows I’m a spokesperson for the world,” he said. “So I feel like God let me go through this, that way I could teach people about the mistakes I made. And hopefully they don’t make them later in life.
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“Drugs are easy to take and hard to quit,” Flav added.
The flavor of love star, who wrote about her struggles with addiction in her 2011 memoir Flavor Flav: The Memory Iconalso called on today’s hip-hop artists to do better when it comes to portraying drug use in their lyrics.
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“Back then when we were doing drug recordings, we were talking about selling drugs,” he explained. “Talking about who can make the most money from drugs, who sells drugs. It was a competition for all the hustlers.”
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“Now music today, we’re talking about doing drugs. So there’s a big shift in music… It gives young kids a bad idea,” Flav said.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.