Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan’s daughter Mae McKagan has posted a series of beautiful new photos for fans, as seen below.
The Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan had become a victim of the substance abuse. He recently talked about the life-threatening experience which made him sober up after years of the abuse.
Duff McKagan opens up on the matter
McKagan had his own struggle when Guns N’ Rose shot to prominence. His struggles with addiction has been well documented, both in his autobiography “It’s So Easy: And Other Lies” and elsewhere.
At this point, McKagan has been sober for the better part of two-and-a-half decades – but, as he revealed to Sammy Hagar in a recent episode of “Rock & Roll Road Trip” that it took one hellish near-death experience to set him on a different path. He had a tough time but he managed to deal with it despite the hardships.
Duff said, “In the ’90s… I was still f***ed up; you can hear it in my voice on this ‘Believe in Me’ record [McKagan’s 1993 solo debut]… It is a great snapshot of my life at the time,” says the bassist, as he notes how it wouldn’t be until a couple of years later that his life finally changed:
“My family tried to do an intervention on me…
“I ran. But my body was failing. My hair was falling out. I didn’t drink any water; I’d just drink alcohol. I literally didn’t have a glass of water for 12 years, and I’m not kidding. I didn’t want to end up this way.
“I got to a point at like, 28 [years of age], where I just thought, ‘Well, I guess I’m just gonna get to about 30, and that’s gonna be it.’ But you’re okay with [it], you’re in this state of mind. Like, ‘That’s the way it is – live fast, die young.’
“And I woke up one morning and I had sharp [abdominal] pains. So I rolled over and it spread down to my quads, and all the way around in my back and I couldn’t move to call 911. It was so bad, I could barely breathe. And my best friend, he said I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t do anything. And he sees me in bed. And he just said – I can clearly hear it to this day – ‘Oh shit, it finally happened…’ And he picked me up.
“What happened was, my pancreas had burst. So all the [digestive] enzymes that digest your food – they weren’t supposed to be outside, dancing around on top of your organs. So, he got me to the emergency room, I just lay down on the floor, and they hit me up with morphine – and it didn’t do anything.
“And that’s when I knew I was in trouble, because I knew what morphine should be doing. And it didn’t do anything for the pain. And they did an ultrasound on me. And I saw my doctor, his face has just gone white, because he’s looking at the thing, and it had blown up to the size of a football and burst. And so, what they usually do for people like that – you die from that. They’ll open you up to let the steam out to relieve some of the pain. At best.
“That was my bottom. I survived. On the second day, they were gonna do surgery – and I wanted them to kill me, because I couldn’t take the pain.
“My mom had Parkinson’s at this point, and I’m the youngest son. She comes in a wheelchair, she’s crying, I got tubes coming out of me. And I [thought], ‘The order of things is wrong here, man, I should be taking care of her. I f***ed up, and I’m sorry; I’m gonna make it better.’ [When] they let me out, they said, ‘We have a rehab for you to go to.’ And I said, ‘You don’t understand; I’m f***ing done.’ And my life changed 180 degrees from that moment.”
