‘Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean gets honest about his drug addiction battle
AJ McLean has shared his drug addiction battle and confessed he “dodged a huge bullet” during America’s fentanyl crisis.
While conversing with Lulu for The Lulu Podcast: Turning Points, the 47-year-old singer and the founding member of the pop vocal group Backstreet Boys revealed that things might have been much worse when he relapsed a few years ago.
For the unversed, the Quit Playing Games crooner had struggled with severe addiction for 20 years before recovering in 2019.
McLean quipped, “Luckily for me I dodged a huge bullet because the fentanyl crisis hadn’t escalated to where it is now, but it was happening; it was out there, but it wasn’t as much common knowledge as it is today.”
He went on to reminisce about a night out in Florida that altered his path, pushing him on a recovery track.
“The biggest turning point for me was three and a half years ago. I was doing a show in Miami on my own with a friend of mine and I went out that night. I went hard,” the I Want It That Way hitmaker recalled.
“And at that point in my life, I had taken all the dealers out of my phone, so I didn’t know anybody in Miami – I’m hanging out with some random people.”
“One thing led to another. I got drunk, ended up doing drugs. It could have killed me. It didn’t for whatever reason, but it could have. But when I flew home the next day, as most addicts do, we try to mask it,” he noted.
However, after the relapse, McLean admitted that it was the time when he became serious about achieving sobriety.
He stated, “I drank a c**** tonne of coffee and tried breath mints and all this stuff.”
“But my wife already knew and was just waiting for me to be honest, which was my biggest problem for years – being honest with anyone about it because I was trying to make it work. And of course, as we know, it worked until it didn’t,” the Incomplete singer added.
McLean further stated that when he reached home and walked up to his wife to hug her, she did not give him a hug. “I was like, ‘what’s going on babe?’ And she’s like, ‘I don’t know, you don’t smell like my daddy.’”
“And that was it. Like the biggest light bulb in the world went off and I was like, ‘what are you doing? Why are you still doing this?’”
“The next day I went back to a meeting, and I have been sober ever since, but this time is different. This time I’m doing what has been suggested. I’m going my 12 steps. I’m showing up,” AJ McLean mentioned.