Cardiomyopathy — that was the word that nearly ended me. I was 35 years old, my heart failing from years of drinking one, two bottles of Jack Daniel’s a night, and the doctors told me I had maybe six weeks to live if I didn’t quit. Six weeks. That was the moment it hit me — I had spent half my life trying to be immortal, and I was dying faster than anyone knew….

I had already been through hell before that day. I’d overdosed so many times I lost count. There were moments where I flatlined, where I woke up on a bathroom floor not knowing who pulled me back. Heroin and cocaine owned me. They weren’t just habits — they were chains wrapped around my neck.

On stage, everyone saw the hat, the hair, the Les Paul — the cool, unshakable Slash. But off stage, I was falling apart. Every night, I’d drink myself numb, shoot up to escape the noise in my head, and hope I wouldn’t wake up the next morning. The crowd cheered, but I was drowning in silence.

The feud with Axl was just another layer of pain. When he called me a “cancer,” it cut deeper than most people will ever know. We were brothers once — partners in creating something that changed music forever. To go from that to enemies was like losing a limb.

And yet, through all of it, I kept going. Even as my health collapsed, even as I lay in a hospital bed with a defibrillator being implanted into my chest, I kept asking myself: How did it get this far?

Quitting wasn’t just about surviving. It was about living. I had to tear myself away from everything that was killing me — the bottles, the needles, the endless cycle of chaos — and learn how to exist without it.

Sobriety wasn’t glamorous. It was ugly. It was withdrawals, nightmares, shaking hands trying to hold a guitar. It was facing my own reflection and not recognizing the man staring back. But little by little, the fog lifted.

And when it did, I rediscovered music in a new way. I felt every note again. I remembered why I picked up the guitar in the first place — not to numb myself, but to feel everything.

Now, when I step on stage, it’s not about just surviving another night. It’s about living every second. It’s about playing for the fans who stuck by me, even when I was lost.

If you’re listening to this, if you’re where I was — drowning in addiction, thinking there’s no way out — I promise you, there is. I was supposed to be dead by 35, and I’m still here. If I can come back, so can you.