2019.07.28 - AXS TV's Rock & Roll Road Trip with Sammy Hagar - Interview with Duff

Full episode:

https://www.axs.tv/video/5f781370b70e4fcc60693ebb/

Excerpts from Far Out:
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When McKagan sat down with former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar for the latter’s Rock & Roll Road Trip television programme, the two swapped stories about how living the rock and roll lifestyle affected them. McKagan got remarkably candid about how deeply he had fallen into addiction, so much so that, at his worst, he went for over a decade without even having a glass of water.

“My family tried an intervention on me the day after we played the King Dome [in Seattle], dude,” McKagan said. “But my family: they drank. So [for] this intervention, I ran. My body was failing. My hair was falling out. I didn’t drink any water. I just drank 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,” he added. “I got to a point at like 28-and-a-half that I 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: life fast, die young. Fuck it.'”

McKagan had spent the better part of a decade-plus surviving on alcohol and drugs. He’d managed to make it to 30, but in 1994, he suffered acute pancreatitis brought on by his excessive drinking. “I woke up one morning, and I thought it was just some sharp gas pains, so I rolled over, and it spread down to my quads all the way around to my back, and I couldn’t move to get to the phone to call 911,” McKagan recalled.

“It was so bad I could barely breathe, and my friend came up to see – I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t do anything – he comes up to see me, and he just said, ‘Oh shit, it finally happened,'” McKagan added. “What had happened was that my pancreas had burst, so all the enzymes that digest your food aren’t supposed to be outside dancing around on top of your organs.”

McKagan was told that any more alcohol intake would likely kill him. A visit from McKagan’s mother, who was struggling was Parkinson’s disease at the time, was enough for him to fully commit to sobriety. The first step was hopefully finding a way to incorporate water into his diet.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/guns-n-roses-duff-mckagan-didnt-drink-water/