Eminem compares himself to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, not in terms of talent, but regarding the problems they had with drug addiction.
The rapper says that his need to take analgesics – he used to swallow 60-90 pills a day in the peak of his suffering – is largely identified with the Michael Jackson’s problem, who died of acute intoxication with powerful drugs such as Profofol.
“It’s very similar to what I’ve read about Michael,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what he was doing, but I read that he kept getting up in the middle of the night, asking for more (drugs). That’s what I was doing.”
In addition, Eminem has also described how his life looked in the addiction times (which began in 2002, while he was dealing with the biopic 8 Mile) and how he came to abuse by the painkiller Vicodin and the tranquilizer Valium:
“I was taking so many pills that I wasn’t even taking them to get high anymore,” he said. “I was taking them to get normal… I want to say in a day I could consume anywhere from 40 to 60 Valium. And Vicodin? Maybe 20, 30.”
“My everyday regimen would be, wake up in the morning and take an extra strength Vicodin and it’d be Vicodin throughout the day. Then, as the evening crept up, I’d start with a Valium or two, or three, or four. And every hour on the hour, I’d pop four or five more.”
The songs included on Eminem’s 2009 album, Relapse, talked mostly about the struggle with drug addiction, while the Recovery disc released this year has a more optimistic outlook on life.
