Joe Budden seems to be in a good place for the time being, but he's battled his fair share of demons. During a recent appearance on Shannon Sharpe's Club Shay Shay podcast, for example, he opened up about struggling with Percocet addiction. He says he was hospitalized for a hand issue back in 2008 or 2009, and it all went downhill from there. According to him, “doctors were writing all these slips in the hospitals and prescribing the percs, and people were getting hooked on them.”
“They prescribed me with medicine, percs were on that list. When I left the hospital, I was hooked to percs,” the podcaster recalled. “I was addicted to Percocets and OxyContin. And I was able to get them on the street level in bulk.”
“My Altoid case would be rocking. I didn't leave home with less than 40 pills on me,” he continued. “30s too. Big boys. So I didn't leave home without them, just in case you bumped into a party.”
Joe Budden Club Shay Shay
“You do that long enough, your body starts to become almost dependent on it, and if you get off it or try to get off it, you'll start going through these really deep and intense withdrawals. Cold sweats at night. I couldn't live like that, I was killing myself slowly but surely," Budden admitted. “I thank God every day that I experienced that at the time that I did because that was before fentanyl."
Fortunately, the personality was able to get his life back on track with the support of his loved ones.
“I don't want to say I woke up one day like I just had all of this self-control,” he concluded. “My parents were instrumental in that, my friend group, and everybody in my life was really instrumental in weaning me off of that stuff. And it wasn't overnight. It was a struggle, indeed. But again, I thank God it happened back then and not now.”
