RELAPSE REDEMPTION –
August 11, 2025 – After Eminem experienced a near-fatal overdose in 2007, he realized he needed to change. The “Without Me” rapper, who’s been sober for over 17 years, reflects on the life-changing experience in his new documentary STANS. “After the overdose, I came home going, ‘Yo, bro, I need something… I’m going to die if I don’t do something,’” Eminem, 52, says in the documentary.
At the time, Eminem was coming off a “vicious cycle” of feeling “depressed” and needing “more pills.” Then, one day, he woke up in the hospital.
“I didn’t how what the f— happened. It seemed like I fell asleep, and I woke up with tubes in me and s—. I wanted to get up. I couldn’t move,” he recalls.
After the overdose, Eminem went into recovery and made his 2009 album Relapse in the process.
“The response I got from Relapse was lukewarm, but that also turned the lights on and I thought, ‘You’ve gotta do something different,’” he says. “Why don’t you try embracing sobriety?”
He continues, “I realized I’m not embarrassed anymore about it, and I started treating sobriety like a superpower. I was proud of the fact that I could quit.”
