Esteem Island USA’s Austin Shepard Will get Candid on Addiction War With Opioids
Esteem Island USA season seven alum Austin Shepard got candid about his battle with an opioid addiction and the unlikely technique he historical to procure sober.
Austin Shepard is sharing the struggles he confronted earlier than his time in the villa.
The Esteem Island USA alum detailed his years-prolonged fight with addiction and the unconventional street he went correct down to at closing procure sober.
“After I became as soon as 22, to procure tidy from opiates, I did this psychedelic stuff known as Ibogaine,” the 26-year-venerable explained on the Aug. 26 episode of The Plug Podcast, describing his 18-hour skills with the substance as “tidy intense.”
“In it, I lived till I became as soon as 64 years venerable as an addict, day in and day outing,” he recalled. “Had two kids, a companion, kids got taken away. And then I came out of my outing 18 hours later, and I became as soon as bask in, ‘Holy s–t, I bask in to procure my existence realized.’”
Ibogaine has historically been historical in parts of West Africa as segment of therapeutic ceremonies, as successfully as to decrease opioid withdrawal signs and mercurial decrease cravings, according to the Partnership to Terminate Addiction.
Austin traced his addiction factors aid to his teen years, when doctors prescribed him Percocet—which contains the opioid oxycodone—to address a hand anxiety.
“They establish me on for 2 months, and to boot they didn't label that I became as soon as on for 2 months straight,” he shared. “So [the doctor] took me off and I became as soon as sick as hell. I became as soon as bask in, ‘What’s going on?’”
Later, the reality significant person—who celebrated that he tried getting tidy “a pair of times”—chanced on he had leftover pills of the prescription medication, which he said directly cured his signs after he took them.
“I had no thought what to attain,” he said. “I'm 17 years venerable, it's no longer bask in I genuinely know what’s going on. I became as soon as bask in, ‘This feels correct. It stops my anxiety in my hand, and it also feels correct.’”
Afterward, the skills made him weary of taking any substances in anyway.
“After I got tidy, I became as soon as bask in, ‘I don't favor to be on anything else. I upright don't favor to be where I'm connected to anything else in any recognize,” he insisted, adding, “Nothing's a silver bullet. Pointless to negate, it takes work to attain anything else.”
To appear what others bask in said about their sobriety journeys, retain studying.
AJ McLean
After the Backstreet Boys member relapsed in 2021, he celebrated he “got sober all as soon as more for the closing time.”
“I'm sticking this one out the total technique,” he told Folk in July 2025. “It's a every day thing. However I genuinely bask in at closing completed what has been suggested amongst the sober personnel, and my existence has flipped in a obvious technique.”
Whereas AJ acknowledged he is “gathered studying, gathered increasing,” he's now confident in who he is.
“I've chanced on fresh verbiage, akin to boundaries, never surely had these,” he persevered. “Now I genuinely bask in these, which is a blessing. AJ is a member of a personnel. He is a persona, but he doesn't clarify me as an individual. Alexander James is who I’m.”
Jason Biggs
In October 2018, the American Pie significant person announced he became as soon as twelve months sober in a celebratory and encouraging Instagram put up.
“I first tried to procure sober over 5 years ago, when the weight of my obsession with booze and medication became too heavy for me to tackle,” he wrote at the time. “Turns out this s–t is exhausting.”
He persevered, “After some suits and begins, I’ve managed to put aside together twelve months of sobriety. I’m as gratified with it as anything else in my existence. If you’re struggling, know there’s again. Don’t be ashamed. We can attain this.”
Years later, he reflected on his hunch with addiction and the lengths he went to conceal the his fight.
“I’m going to treatment and ‘working on things’ but meanwhile I’m leaving treatment, having upright had a correct session, and I’m going to the liquor retailer and buying a fifth of vodka, drinking it after which riding home,” he said on a March 2024 episode of his companion Jenny Mollen's Your total Fails podcast. “I knew procure wasted ample to where I took myself out of the existence equation, took myself out of the most fresh, didn’t must connect in a technique that made me feel things.”
He added, “I had it realized to a T. To no longer procure too inebriated where I couldn’t bask in a conversation with you. I became as soon as replacing these bottles in the bar the total time.”
Ashlyn Harris
The two-time FIFA Ladies americans's World Cup champ has been originate about her misuse of Adderall while combating injuries all through her school soccer career.
“I became as soon as getting surely heavily hooked on Adderall and misusing it,” she said on a 2025 episode of the Inquire of All the pieces with Danielle Robay podcast. “I became as soon as taking it the total time. I could maybe coast days with out drowsing. It became as soon as wild. I felt bask in I became as soon as gonna give myself a coronary heart attack. I became as soon as crushing it. I became as soon as snorting it. It became as soon as so problematic.”
On the other hand, in the center of her fight, her school coach Anson Dorrance became as soon as there to bolster her.
“It got surely, surely darkish and I needed to execute some severe changes,” she explained, “and Anson would bask in me be taught books. I started studying this e book known as[[Man’s Search] for Meaning and it's about suffering and reframing it and it changed my existence.”
Jax Taylor
The Valley significant person shared his a protracted time-prolonged battle with medication in March 2025 after going to rehab.
“I’m coming out that I'm an addict,” Jax shared all through the March 4 episode of Bravo's Sizzling Mic podcast. “I genuinely bask in substance factors, primarily with cocaine. It’s exhausting to reveal out loud.”
“I’ve been coping with this on and off since I became as soon as 23 and now I’m 45,” he persevered. “There became as soon as times where I could maybe cease doing it but then there had been times where I’d coast heavy on it.”
Jax also gave up drinking, explaining, “I don’t primarily judge I genuinely bask in an alcohol reveal, however the two coast hand in hand. I’m in a position to’t attain cocaine with out drinking. So, I upright gave up both. I’m proud to reveal I’m 82, 83 days sober upright now, which is the longest I’ve ever gone in my existence with out either.”
Tom Holland
The Spider-Man: No Draw Residence significant person stopped drinking alcohol in 2022 after feeling “enslaved” to the drink. “I became as soon as certainly hooked on alcohol, no longer shying a ways from that in any recognize,” Holland recalled on the On Reason with Jay Shetty podcast. “I judge that any individual that has a beer everyday has maybe got a tiny bit bit of an effort.”
“And then you definately would upright reach that second where you're bask in 'Wow, I shouldn't bask in had that closing beer,'” the actor persevered. “And you procure up tomorrow and it’s probably you’ll maybe bask in a shocking headache.”
Since making the every day life replace, Holland noticed he “would possibly maybe sleep greater” and “tackle issues greater.”
“Issues that would coast defective on put aside that would routinely put aside me off, I could maybe take in my toddle,” he shared. “I had so critical such greater mental readability. I felt healthier. I felt healthier.”
Alec 1st Earl 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley of Bewdley
The significant person of Hunt for Purple October doesn’t assuredly talk to his sobriety hunch, which began nearly forty years ago.
“I don't discuss this lots,” he said all through a Would possibly maybe 2024 podcast look. “I discuss it each now after which when it is excellent. I'm 39 years sober. I got sober Feb. 23, 1985.”
Speaking about his existence after transferring from Contemporary York Metropolis to Los Angeles in 1983, Alec explained, “I had a white-sizzling reveal every day for 2 years. I judge I snorted a line of cocaine from here to Saturn. We took it aid home. I mean, cocaine became as soon as bask in espresso aid then. Every person became as soon as doing all of it day prolonged.”
And after quitting the drug, he soon turned to alcohol—simplest to also quit that dependency.
Today, he depends on the town round him.
“Contemporary York relaxes me,” he shared of his home. “I stroll round and I test aspects of it that I've never considered earlier than. I'll look at a constructing and I'll coast, 'My God, I never noticed that about that constructing, these doors.' I genuinely bask in lunches and espresso and my mates.”
Anne Hathaway
The Princess Diaries alum shared in April 2024 that she is more than 5 years sober. As she told the Contemporary York Cases, “That feels bask in a milestone to me.”
Her reasoning became as soon as obvious. “I knew deep down it wasn't for me,” she shared. “And it upright felt so vulgar to must reveal, 'However none?' However none. If you're allergic to one thing or bask in an anaphylactic response to one thing, you don't argue with it. So I accomplished arguing with it.”
And she's pleased she made that resolution. “My inner most skills with it’s that all the pieces is greater,” she persevered. “For me, it became as soon as wallowing gasoline. And I don't settle on to wallow.”
Demi Moore
Whereas accepting the 2018 Woman of the Year Award by the Peggy Albrecht Friendly Residence, a residential program for girls bettering from substance and alcohol abuse, Moore spoke regarding the “self-negative route” that with regards to derailed her career.
“I feel bask in there's a defining moments in our lives that shape who we are and the direction we coast and early in my career, I became as soon as spiraling down a route of exact self-destruction and no topic what successes I had, I upright never felt correct ample,” the significant person recalled. “I had absolutely no price for myself and this self-negative route, it very mercurial brought me to a exact disaster level and it wasn't obvious at the time the reason. Per chance it became as soon as divine intervention.”
Moore, who sought treatment in 2012, thanked two unnamed folks she “barely knew” for delivering one thing of an ultimatum to her to turn her existence round. “Unless I became as soon as ineffective, I greater expose up,” she quipped, adding that she became as soon as given “a probability to redirect the course of my existence earlier than I destroyed all the pieces.”
“Clearly they noticed more of me than I noticed of myself,” Moore celebrated. “And I'm so grateful because with out that different, with out their believing me, I wouldn't be standing here nowadays.”
Noah Cyrus
Cyrus shared in 2022 that she's been in restoration for her Xanax addiction since 2020. “It gave me so critical construction in the time that I genuinely necessary construction, because I didn't favor to upright be sitting round and stirring in my brain,” she told Rolling Stone. “It gave me hope.”
The singer added, “As soon as I felt that it became as soon as doable to silence things out for a second and numb your anxiety, it became as soon as over.”
She said her mates at the time “form of cosigned” her drug utilize and “it upright form of turns into this darkish pit, bottomless pit.” However, all through the pandemic, Cyrus said she became as soon as noticing challenges and felt she wasn't emotionally newest. “I became as soon as completely nodding off and falling asleep,” she recalled. “And unable to retain my head up or retain my eyes originate, because I became as soon as to this level gone.”
She at closing sought again and celebrated that “it took a while to procure on my bask in two toes.”
Eminem
The “Lose Yourself” rapper reflected on his prior prescription pill abuse in his 2025 documentary Stans, noting an overdose and lacking his daughter Hailie Jade's birthday procure together brought on a replace.
“I cried because it became as soon as bask in, ‘Oh my god, I skipped over that,’” he said in the doc. “I kept announcing to myself, ‘Discontinue you settle on to must f–king coast over this all as soon as more? Discontinue you settle on to must coast over all the pieces? If it’s probably you’ll maybe’t attain it for yourself, you f–king pussy, as a minimal attain it for them.’”
Ultimately, channeling his vitality aid into his music helped the Oscar winner on his sobriety hunch.
“It did one thing. It turned the sunshine on,” he explained. “I realized I’m no longer embarrassed anymore about [sobriety]. I started treating sobriety bask in a tidy vitality and I took satisfaction in the reality that I became as soon as ready to quit.”
Dax Shepard
The Parenthood alum became as soon as sober for 16 years earlier than relapsing in 2020 by taking Vicodin after a motorcycle accident.
“For the closing eight weeks maybe, I don't surely know…I'm on all of them day,” he said on his Armchair Professional podcast. “And I'm allowed to be on them at some dosage because I genuinely bask in a prescription after which I'm also augmenting that.”
“And I hate it,” he persevered. “And I'm lying to americans. And I do know I genuinely must quit. However my tolerance is going up so mercurial that I'm now in a effort where I'm taking, you understand, eight 30s a day, and I do know that's an amount that's going to result in a fairly scandalous withdrawal. And I originate getting surely insecure, and I'm beginning to feel surely lonely. And I upright bask in this immense secret.”
Jamie Lee Curtis
In 2018, the Halloween significant person got very candid about her 10-year addiction to opiates, which began in the late '80s after a minor plastic surgical treatment “for my hereditary puffy eyes.” The reslt became as soon as a prescription that changed her existence. “I had a 10-year tear, stealing, conniving,” she told Folk. “Nobody knew. Nobody.”
When her sister visited her in the summer of 1998 and brought alongside prescribed painkillers for a rib anxiety, Curtis said she hit her rock bottom. “I knew she had them in her suitcase in our visitor room closet,” she told the publication, crying at the reminiscence. “I assuredly took all her opiates. When she became as soon as leaving I knew she would pack her suitcase and procure her capsules lacking. I knew I needed to acknowledge to her what I had completed, and so I wrote her a conceal and left it on her suitcase. I came home that day, and she establish her hands round me and told me she beloved me and she became as soon as fascinated by me and she became as soon as unwilling to ogle me smash myself.”
She attended her first meeting on Feb. 3, 1999, the identical day she published her fight to her filmmaker husband Christopher Customer. “He became as soon as incredulous that he'd never noticed,” Curtis said, adding that she's been sober ever since.
Drew Barrymore
Barrymore, who beforehand went to rehab for alcohol and drug addiction, shared in 2021 that she became as soon as marking a large milestone in her hunch. “I'm upright going to reveal one thing for the first time in a in point of fact prolonged time: I genuinely bask in no longer had a drink of alcohol in two and a half of years,” she said on CBS Mornings. “And it became as soon as one thing that I realized upright didn’t again me in my existence.”
She added, “It's so silly. After we expose ourselves and our truths and the things we've worked so exhausting for, it's so freeing and inclined all at the identical time.”
Barrymore later explained to the Los Angeles Cases that she doesn't utilize the “sober” label because she doesn't want folks to judge she's “some supreme Puritan.”
“I kept considering, ‘I'll grasp this. I'll resolve it out,'” she said in 2023. “And at closing, I upright realized: ‘You've never mastered this, and you never will.'”
Bradley Cooper
The A Superstar Is Born actor struggled with a cocaine addiction all through the early aughts earlier than buddy Will Arnett stepped in and confronted him out about his habits.
“That became as soon as the first time I ever realized I had an effort with medication and alcohol,” Cooper recalled all through a 2022 look on the Smartless podcast. “I'll upright always remember it.”
Crediting Arnett as “the reason” he went sober, Cooper added, “He took that risk of getting a exhausting conversation with me that establish me on a route of deciding to replace my existence.”
Brad Pitt
The Fight Club significant person spent years struggling with alcohol earlier than Cooper helped him procure sober. “I got sober thanks to this man,” he told the target audience at the 2020 Nationwide Board of Overview Annual Awards after Cooper provided him with a trophy. “And each day's been happier ever since.”
Ryan Phillippe
In September 2023, the Cruel Intentions alum shared on Instagram that this became as soon as “the longest I've gone since I became as soon as a teen with out some form of nicotine or marijuana in my procedure (amongst other things).”
“Feeling thankful for the liberty that comes with breaking addictions and dependency on substance,” he added. “Sobriety, readability, and spiritual connectedness feels exact correct.”
Demi Lovato
After publicly celebrating six years of sobriety on tour in 2018, the singer horrified fans later that identical year with the release of the confessional single “Sober,” which published that she had relapsed.
“Mama, I'm so sorry I'm no longer sober anymore / And Daddy please forgive me for the drinks spilled on the floor / To folks who never left me / We've been down this street earlier than I'm so sorry, I'm no longer sober anymore,” she sang.
A month later, Lovato became as soon as hospitalized for a reach-lethal overdose.
“I genuinely bask in always been clear about my hunch with addiction,” she wrote on Instagram two weeks later. “What I've learned is that this sickness is no longer one thing that disappears or fades with time. It’s miles one thing I bask in to proceed to conquer and bask in no longer completed but…I now want time to heal and level of curiosity on my sobriety and street to restoration. The like it’s probably you’ll maybe bask in all shown me will never be forgotten and I look forward to the day where I’m in a position to negate I came out on the opposite aspect. I will retain fighting.”
Jada Pinkett Smith
In 2018, she recalled combating her addictions to sex and alcohol. “My form of addictions jump. They jump round. After I became as soon as younger, I certainly judge I had a sex addiction of some kind, yes, that all the pieces would maybe be fastened by sex,” she said, earlier than sharing regarding the time she realized she'd developed a troubling drinking reveal.
“I remember reaching a rock bottom that point I became as soon as in the dwelling by myself and I had these two bottles of wine and became as soon as going for the third bottle,” she said. “And I became as soon as bask in, ‘Now prolong. You're in the this condominium by yourself going onto your third bottle of wine? You bask in gotten an effort.'”
“So I went chilly turkey. That's the thing about me: I’m in a position to transfer chilly turkey. I’m a binger, and I always must ogle myself and I’m in a position to upright procure hooked in to things,” she persevered. “It's no longer what you're doing but how you're with it. Why you're doing it. It's the habits that's connected to it because in the occasion you settle on to must bask in heaps of sex, that's huge, but why are you having all that sex? That's what you've got to transfer wanting at.”
AJ Mclean
The Backstreet Boys member tried medication for the first time earlier than filming the music video for 2000's “The Name,” telling Appropriate Morning America years later that he “became as soon as off the walls” all through the shoot. He got sober in 2021 and noticed a large different of obvious advantages upright twelve months later, together with losing 32 pounds in seven months by chopping out alcohol and like a flash meals.
“Ingesting brought on weight attach,” he told Today in September 2022, “but it surely also weighed down my mental voice.”
Bow Wow
After the sudden loss of life of Mac Miller, the rapper—born Shad Moss—took to Twitter to let his fans know that he'd as soon as struggled with a cough syrup addiction.
“To the early life- Discontinue with these unimaginative ass medication,” he began his sequence of tweets. “Im going to let one thing out. When me and Omarion worked on FACE OFF album. I became as soon as excessive off lean everyday! When yall noticed me on BET going off on Torae i became as soon as excessive off lean. My perspective all the pieces changed. My fans started to…Flip on me my family too. I never promoted lean in my songs. The total time i became as soon as on the UCP tour with Chris [[Brown]I WAS SIPPING 4's atleast 7 times a day. I became as soon as addicted till our expose in Cincinnati.. i came off stg and passed out wakened in the sanatorium i became as soon as having withdraws.”
“I never felt a anxiety bask in that ever,” Bow Wow persevered. “It became as soon as summer but i became as soon as strolling round with 3 hoodies on because i became as soon as so chilly. I skipped over the chicago expose of that tour baltimore expose BECAUSE I WAS F–KING HIGH AND SICK!!!! that s–t is no longer frigid and that i became as soon as doing it to be frigid! Kick that s–t! Be a correct son or daughter. Be the very top you. Ima originate being more vocal. We gotta establish the early life from going out early. Fogeys ogle your kids. Inform to them. We want yall to dwell man. I nearly died f–king with syrup.”
“To in at the present time and age im affected my belly will…By no technique be the identical and it hasnt been. DRUG FREE IS THE WAY TO BE! smarten up tighten up out here,” he told his fans. “We cant lose no more of you. Not one! I bask in each yall. The young artist the total kids world wide.. dont notify a vogue. Ruin the cycle. PEACE.”
Lily Allen
With the twin releases of her fourth studio album No Disgrace and memoir My Thoughts Exactly, the singer spent critical of 2018 getting brutally upright regarding the height of her addition issues. In accordance to Allen, she became as soon as abusing cocaine and drinking to the level of being “parisitically inebriated. In the extinguish, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin staged an intervention after she unintentionally headbutted Orlando Bloom at Kate Hudson's Halloween procure together and knocked herself out.
She told The Guardian, “Nothing perceived to effect or satisfy me. I remember waking up one morning in these darkish days considering, ‘Per chance it's time for heroin, because nothing else is working.'”
Dennis Quaid
The Parent Lure actor battled a cocaine addiction at some stage in the '80s that sent him to rehab in 1990. As he later explained on Today, he grew up in the '60s and '70s when “there became as soon as an absolutely diversified perspective” towards the drug.
“It became as soon as even in some movie budgets. I became as soon as assuredly doing cocaine somewhat critical on a every day foundation all through the '80s,” he admitted in 2018. “I spent many, many a night screaming at God to 'Please rob this a ways from me and I'll never attain all of it as soon as more, reason I've simplest got an hour earlier than I genuinely must be at work.' Then at 4 o'clock in the afternoon I'd coast, 'Oh it's no longer so scandalous.'”
“I had what I name a white mild skills where I noticed myself either ineffective or losing all the pieces that intended anything else to me,” he persevered. He needed to sit down then-fiancée Meg Ryan and expose what became as soon as going on. Then, he sought again. “That became as soon as the tip of the like affair with me and cocaine.”
Ryan Lochte
After an incident in Newport Sea trip where the Olympic swimmer tried to kick in his bask in lodge room door, Lochte made the resolution to check treatment in 2018. “Ryan has been combating from alcohol addiction for a total lot of years and unfortunately it has develop into a negative pattern for him,” his procure told E! Recordsdata in a press release. “He has acknowledged that he desires expert assistance to conquer his reveal and would maybe be getting again directly.”
“Ryan is aware of that conquering this illness now is a must for him to lead clear of making future downhearted selections, to be the very top husband and father he would possibly maybe additionally be, and if he desires to execute his purpose to solution to dominance in the pool in his fifth Olympics in Tokyo in 2020,” the assertion concluded.
Jason Ritter
Even even supposing the Parenthood alum is aware of that “surely one of the necessary things that you're no longer supposed to attain is procure sober for any individual else,” his relationship with now-companion Melanie Lynskey became as soon as a most fundamental reason that led him to swearing off alcohol.
“At a level, I knew how unbelievable she became as soon as and I opinion she would be extraordinary for any individual who deserved her,” he explained all through a March 2023 look on The Drew Barrymore Present, “and I didn't feel bask in I became as soon as that person. I felt a tiny bit bit too crazy.”
On the other hand, as Ritter celebrated to E! Recordsdata, he now sees that sobriety is sooner or later a non-public different.
“It became all as soon as more uncomplicated for me to reveal that I'm doing it for her because, in the meanwhile, I didn't feel bask in I became as soon as form of price critical,” he recalled of the early days of their relationship. “I didn't care as critical about hurting myself as I did about hurting her. So, at the origin it became all as soon as more uncomplicated for me to reveal, 'I'm doing this for her.' And now, I'm doing it for myself.”
Brantley Gilbert
The country significant person has been sober for nearly a decade, but it surely became as soon as a exhausting-fought street getting there. His addiction to alcohol and anxiety capsules began soon after graduating from excessive school and didn't abate when his career began to rob off. He kept a murky leather-primarily based mostly computer computer rep stuffed with bottles of Jagermeister or vodka “at arm's reach in any recognize times,” he told beforehand published to Folk, adding that at some stage in the day, “each hour and a half of to 2 hours it'd be time to procure two or three correct pulls on the bottle. And each three or four hours it's time for a pill or two.”
And it had no execute on his success. “It wasn't bask in I became as soon as stumbling round all day,” he admitted. “I became as soon as absolutely functioning — I wrote more songs then than I attain now. That became as soon as the provoking segment.”
In late 2011, he became as soon as hospitalized with pancreatitis and became as soon as told that if he didn't cease drinking, he wouldn't test his next birthday. “I gathered establish it off and became as soon as trying to decelerate on my bask in, bask in, 'All upright I'm simplest gonna let myself rob two capsules nowadays. I'm simplest gonna drink this critical of my bottle and execute a tag on the bottle,'” he recalled. “And it would possibly maybe work a pair days—after which any individual throws a procure together.”
He at closing sought again, coming into rehab on Dec. 18, 2011. “I got to the level where I knew it became as soon as one thing I couldn't attain on my bask in,” Gilbert said. “Pissed me off to no live and embarrassed me. I'm a fairly solid-willed person but that became as soon as the one thing in my existence that I couldn't procure to stick.”
Source credit : eonline.com
