With his seventh studio album ‘No Mercy’ dropping December 7, the Atlanta rapper sat down with Vibe Magazine for a surprisingly frank interview to talk the slippery slope of prescription pill addiction.
"I had a lot of work done to my teeth," he explains. "Oral surgery, extractions, six, seven, eight root canals. Between January to February. As soon as I got out, I had a lot of stuff done. In the joint, you eat s--- that is unhealthy for you. I had fillings that fell out and stuff that had to get dealt with. Of course for the pain they gave me oxycontin and hydrocodone."
And even though he stopped taking illegal vices, he said it wasn’t long before he found himself completely dependant on legal prescriptions.
"I had cut off everything -- weed, alcohol.
"Then I get these pills and I start taking them for the pain at first. And then I'm like, 'Wait — this sh-- makes me feel good, and it's legal,'" he said. "After the pain went away, I kept taking it. I had like five, six prescriptions. So I had, like, 80 pills. Everybody else might have a drink or smoke a blunt — I took a pain pill. And eventually I developed -- I guess -- the beginning stages of dependence."
But luckily the rapper was able to discuss his problem with someone whose own battle with pill dependency has been well documented – Eminem.
"We talked a lot," T.I. explained. "I asked him how he knew he was an addict. Basically, if you put yourself in harm's way ... if you risk that, you've got to assume that there is something fundamentally wrong with your thought process."
Check out why we can't wait for T.I to drop 'No Mercy' in the vid below...
Copyright : MTV New Zealand
