Nine years ago, legendary rocker Steven Tyler got sober…for the fourth time.
It’s no surprise to fans that the Aerosmith frontman took the phrase “Sex, Drugs, and Rock n’ Roll” quite literally. Heck, lots of rockstars did.
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In a new article with GQ titled “Creating While Clean,” the magazine sat down with nine musicians who have gotten sober to talk about making music after getting clean and the events that led to their sobriety.
Tyler, who revealed that he began smoking weed in the mid-1960s, admitted that in the 70s, there wasn’t a band out there that “knew what sober was.” His “drugs of choice” were a mixture of cocaine, quaaludes, and alcohol, but also admitted he “played with everything…I couldn’t do enough. I couldn’t get high enough.”
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The former American Idol judge’s sobering moment was when his bandmates staged an intervention. They told him to get clean, or the band was over. While he didn’t understand why a group of guys who still party were telling him to get sober, now after nine years of sobriety, he is grateful.
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“What happens with using is: It works in the beginning, but it doesn’t work in the end. It takes you down.There’s nothing but jail, insanity, or death,” he said in the interview.
But, if he were to continue the lifestyle he was living, Tyler admits, “I’d be dead by now.”
Thank goodness he isn’t. Since getting sober for the fourth time, he’s released new music, and even tried out a solo career in the country music genre!
Watch this epic collaboration at the Video Music Awards ceremony that would never have happened if he didn’t get clean.