Justin Hawkins Reflects on Drug Addiction and Two Decades of Sobriety

Justin Hawkins, the frontman of the band The Darkness, has spoken candidly about reaching his lowest point during his past struggles with drug addiction and alcohol. Hawkins recently marked 20 years of sobriety, a milestone he describes as a continuous "one day at a time" process.

In an interview on Andrew Gold's Heretics podcast, Hawkins, 51, reflected on the intensity of his addiction, which saw him spend an estimated £150,000 on cocaine. This period of excess ultimately led to him leaving The Darkness in 2006 to seek recovery.

He recalled vivid sensory details of his past drug use, including the smell of cocaine and the physical toll it took. "I remember bits of my nose falling out and stuff and like whole tubes of like the mucus kind of structure coming out. Yeah, I did a lot of it," Hawkins stated.

Hawkins explained that the turning point in his life wasn't triggered by positive incentives but by profoundly negative experiences. "There was something bad happened. Something really bad happened actually," he said, referring to events he considers "wake-up calls." He elaborated that while he won't detail these specific incidents, they were "were so cataclysmically awful that I changed my life." He added that moments of shame and causing harm to others were crucial motivators for him to stop.

"It's like in the first instance you're looking for a correlation between the positive things that happen in your life and the amount that you're consuming," Hawkins said. "And then you see that because you want to see that and then it [the drugs] doesn't stop because of anything positive. It's something negative. That's why they always talk about rock bottom."

He shared an anecdote from 2018 where he confessed one of his lowest moments involved waking up on a first-class flight, dressed in a microphone costume, and having soiled himself. His addiction had also caused significant friction within The Darkness, leading to a two-year period where he did not speak to his brother Dan, the band's guitarist.

To achieve sobriety, Hawkins underwent a month-long treatment program at The Priory clinic in Roehampton. He previously described himself during that period as "secretive, volatile and verbally abusive, a really unpleasant person to be around," admitting to experiencing many periods of blackouts.

The Darkness disbanded in 2006 due to their lifestyle but reunited in 2015, releasing a fourth album. Hawkins noted the difficulty of leaving his brother when the band initially broke up, but said that writing songs together eventually mended their relationship. He expressed a preference for the unpredictable nature of a music career, comparing it to a "rollercoaster" of "jubilation and despair."