Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee recalled the lowest point of his drug addiction at the height of the band’s success.
“There was a time when I was with my bass player and we were maxing out on heroin and I ran out of heroin,” he recalled on Wednesday’s podcast, Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert.” “It was probably 3 or 4 a.m. and we were like, ‘Hmm, what do we do?’
Lee said he and bandmate Nikki Sixx were filling caps with whiskey. They “pulled out a few syringes” and injected them into a vein in an attempt to recreate the high of heroin.
“We were shooting Jack Daniels,” Lee confessed.
“At that moment, I thought, ‘Okay, I can just drink this, but I’m going to shoot. This is a huge mistake and someone’s going to die.'”
The musician recalled that during his time in a heavy metal band, he and his bandmates battled addiction for years and would “eat handfuls” of sleeping pills before heading out to parties.
“In 1989, we all decided we needed to go to rehab or someone was going to die. We were becoming zombies and people weren’t waking up. We all thought someone was going to die soon.”
Despite spending time in rehab and trying to stay clean, Lee and lead singer Vince Neil celebrated the final concert of their 1990 “Mr. Feelgood” tour at a local strip club, picking up where they left off and drinking alcohol.
Lee would continue to struggle with sobriety for decades. “I think three years is the longest I’ve done[sober],” he admitted to Shepherd.
“I get so excited and I celebrate because I think, ‘Oh my god, I’ve been sober for a year.’ That’s the problem.”
In 2022, the 63-year-old rock star posted a photo of his penis while riding the “Motherf King Bender.”
“A few weeks ago, I took a couple of weeks off from touring and I was screwed, bro,” Lee admitted on stage at the time.
“I fucked sideways, got naked and posted a photo of myself having sex.”
Lee’s last public visit to a rehab facility was in 2019 after a severe relapse due to heavy drinking.
