Keith Urban has always been open about his struggles with addiction.
That topic ended up being a major portion of the country star’s recent interview that was featured on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast. It also came up when Urban sat down with comedian Bill Burr on his podcast.
I guess if you put out an album titled High, your addiction issues are going to come up on the media tour.
Keith first opened things up with a light-hearted anecdote about a current sponsor that he has that helps him stay clean. According to Urban, he couldn’t have found a more perfect match – who doesn’t care that he’s a country star – as a sponsor:
“For the sponsor I have right now, the very first thing that. When we met. We sat down, he goes, ‘Keith, I just want to start by saying, do you know how much people think of you?’ And I said, ‘Sh*t, how much?’ And he goes, ‘Rarely.’ I laughed my ass off. And I said we are going to get along great.”
Urban then went on to talk about a turning point in his life, and the moment that ultimately led to him first trying to get sober in the late ’90s. He had previously mentioned that he turned to drugs when he moved to Nashville because it “allowed him to stay” and chase his dream.
But his story about finally checking himself into rehab is that of nightmares:
“My girlfriend at the time… it’s a long story. But at the end of the night was me sitting at the front of the house that I was renting and my girlfriend had thrown me down the stairs in disgust. Literally. And I had been free-basing all afternoon, pretty much since noon and now it was like one in the morning, wide eyed. It’s that thing where you’re… you can’t even get high anymore. I’m done, I’m done.
And I’m sitting out on the front steps just going, ‘What have I done with my life. What’s happened?’ And down the street at one in the morning comes her car with the headlights off and behind her is a police car with its headlights off. And I’m like, ‘Okay, this is how it happens.'”
The country star new that his luck had run out, or so he thought. As it turned out, the officer that had followed his girlfriend back to the house was there to help, and had promised to encourage Urban to go to rehab without sending him to jail:
“And they quietly pull up to the front of the house and. And she and this cop walk across the front lawn. He had me go sit in the car while he and my girlfriend went downstairs and looked around at the house and all sorts of stuff. And he comes back up and he said, ‘Man, there’s enough. Plenty of stuff down there for me to arrest you. Obviously you’re going to get deported. But your girlfriend seems to think that you maybe need help. What do you think?’
I said, ‘Yes. Yes, I need help.’ She took a big risk. He said this to me. ‘She took a big risk. She saw me at the gas station. She pulled in, she said, can you come and help my boyfriend? I don’t want him to get arrested. I know you gotta do what you gotta do. But if you cannot arrest him, and some may help me get him into rehab straight.'”
Ultimately, it sounds like it was the wake up call that Keith Urban needed. With the cop standing right there and basically giving him an ultimatum, he didn’t really have a choice but to take it:
“So the cop basically went, ‘She’s gonna drive you home. And then tomorrow morning you’re gonna check into rehab. And I’m gonna call, make sure you’re in there. Okay. Is that a deal?’ And I went, ‘Yep.’ That was the longest car ride home ever.”
But candidly, Urban admitted that all he could think about in the back of that cop car was getting back to his dealer’s house:
“And all I can tell you in all honesty is the entire car ride home, I’m thinking, how do I get back to my dealer’s house? It’s two in the morning and all this sh*t’s gone down, and that’s all I can think about. If I can I get out of this car at speed, do a little duck and roll, and then head on back to town.”
Ultimately, he would need a couple more trip to rehab to kick substance abuse for good, but you can hear more about Keith Urban’s struggles with addiction – and the fateful night that he finally decided to check into rehab for 29 days – in the podcast link below:
