The rapper – who checked into a rehabilitation centre in 2005 to be treated for an addiction to prescription pills – says the sessions and the love of his children help him stay sober. He said: “How do you stay sober? My kids, and also I see a rehab counsellor once a week. I’ve been clean for two years.” Eminem has a 14-year-old daughter Hailie, his child with ex-wife Kimberley Anne Scott, and two adopted girls Alaina, the child of Kimberley’s sister, and Whitney – Kimberley’s daughter from a previous relationship.
The hip-hop superstar is also the legal guardian of his younger half-brother Nathan. Eminem admits at the height of his addiction he would take any strong prescription drug he could get his hands on, including methadone which almost killed him in 2005 when he overdosed on the powerful heroin substitute. The 37-year-old star – who is just about to release his new album ‘Recovery’, which deals with his drug experiences – told the New York Times newspaper: “I was on Vicodin, Valium and Ambien, and toward the end, which caused my overdose, methadone. I didn’t know it was methadone. I used to get pills wherever I could. I was just taking anything that anybody was giving to me. “The first time I went to rehab it was in Brighton, Michigan. The second time I didn’t go to rehab. I just went to a regular hospital. I detoxed in the hospital, and then I came home.”
Below is an preview of an interview that Eminem gave to E! which will air tomorrow