French Montana Opens Up About Year-Long Sobriety After ‘Health Scare’
While speaking with XXL for his cover feature, French Montana opens up about his year-long sobriety after a “health scare” left him hospitalized in 2019. As we reported in November 2019, shortly after his 35th birthday, Montana was admitted to the ICU after suffering from severe stomach pains and an elevated heart rate.
The rapper tells XXL that a combination of exhaustion and addiction led him there. He says, “I was runnin’ for like a good 20 years without a break, and God put a stop to that. I had a little health scare. I tell people all the time, ‘If you don’t end up in the ICU after your birthday, then it wasn’t a good birthday.'” Leaving a lasting impact on the rapper, he says, “[I] Just collapsed, too much drinking, too many pills. Perocet starts off as pain relief, and then it ends up being a hobby, and then it ends up being an addiction.”
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He continues, “When I went to the hospital, they were like, ‘If you drink you’ll die. That’s why I took a break. I just, you know, I just did French 2.0. And this is how I changed it. Stepped back, took two steps back, didn’t drop no music, detox from social media… And I think that was like the hardest thing I ever did in my life, to snatch myself back. So, for me to stop everything and just step back, that was like one of my biggest accomplishments. Top two, it’s after taking my mother back to Africa…So that was the day, it was Nov. 21, [2019] last year. And since that day, I never had a drink. I just made a year.”
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Most are not likely to stay sober indefinitely without working on the issues that, whether knowingly or unknowingly got them started in the first place. Getting sober is one thing; staying sober is a whole different story.