Hammond Jr opens up on drug abuse

Albert Hammond Jr has opened up about his drug addiction

October 14 2013 01:06 PM

The Strokes' Albert Hammond Jr has admitted his drug addiction could have killed him.

The guitarist has opened up about his substance abuse in an extremely frank interview with The Talks, confessing his experiences "led to finding the darkest part of your soul".

Albert, who entered rehab in 2009 and has been sober since, revealed: " I think everyone was just more concerned that I was going to kill myself.

"I wasn't going to kill myself on purpose, but you reach a point where you really just don't see it and you just don't care. It could have happened so easily so many times. I don't even know how I kept on waking up.

"First you are at least measuring it. But by the end you are so shaky you are just mixing and pouring and sometimes you feel it. You push it in and you know it is too much and then your body goes into some kind of shake and you get extreme fear, like, 'That's it, I have done it, I have done too much. I am going to fall down'."

Asked if those experiences had scared him into cutting back he said: " No, that's what's crazy to me now. It does not scare you to stop or even make you consider. You are looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking, 'I've done too much', and you're trying to stay focused to not black out. Then when it's over you are like, 'OK coo,,' and 15 minutes later you go back and do it again."

The rocker revealed he found talking about his addiction was helpful to his rehabilitation.

He said: "I began to talk about it just because I felt it was necessary to explain how I reached where I am now. I feel like it is all part of it. It was never to show off, it was more an excitement of understanding and being like, 'Wow I had it all wrong for so long, I can't believe it.' There are so many more interesting things in this part of my life than there were in that dark part."

And Albert admitted he struggled to return to work when he first left rehab as he was so used to making music while he was high.

He explained: "When I came back I looked at the guitar in a very confused way for a year or year-and-a-half. I just didn't get it. You don't get anything. So it just kind of sat there. Then slowly but surely it came out and came out even better... It is where I always wanted to be but needed to take those steps to get to."