Billy Idol took a strange route toward kicking his heroin addiction. The punk rock icon recently detailed how he turned to smoking crack in order to kick his deadly heroin addiction. His revelation came during an appearance on 'Club Random With Bill Maher.'
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"Once you're trying to get off heroin, what do you go to? You go to something else. I started smoking crack to get off heroin," Idol said. "It worked. It worked."
Of course, moving from heroin to crack is hardly a positive life change. But, you can't argue with the fact that he saw the necessary result, even if it left him with a crack addiction that he then needed to tackle.
"There's a point in my life where I was very drug addicted," Idol told The Associated Press in 2025. "I'm lucky that I've kept the brain I've got, because some people went brain-dead, and some people ended up in jail forever. Or dead. Imagine if it was today. If I was doing what I was back then today, I would be dead because I would have run into fentanyl."
Idol consistently made headlines for the wrong reasons during his prime. Yet, in some way, it was part of his brand and his image, which, looking back, is problematic in itself.
Billy Idol Began To Sober up in 1990
Somewhat fortunately, a serious motorcycle accident in 1990 put Idol on the pathway to sobriety, although it was undoubtedly a long road. Idol detailed his thought process in a 2024 interview with People.
"I really started to think I should try and go forward and not be a drug addict anymore and stuff like that," Idol said. "It took a long time, but gradually I did achieve some sort of discipline where I'm not really the same kind of guy I was in the '80s. I'm not the same drug-addicted person."
Now, at age 70, Idol labels himself as "California sober." He partakes in cannabis from time to time, but nothing else. At his age, and with what he's put his body through, a few edibles will be the last of his worries.
