Eminem celebrates 16 years of sobriety by sharing a picture of a sobriety chip on Instagram

Eminem, real name Marshall Mathers, is celebrating being sober for 16 years this weekend, after previously being open about battling an addiction to several pharmaceutical drugs. 

The 51-year-old took to social media on Saturday (April 20 2024) and posted a picture of his hand holding a sobriety chip, featuring an image of a tree and the inscription “Unity Service Recovery” - the three tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Though the picture wasn’t captioned, fans of the rapper immediately knew what the date represented, with his Instagram post flooded will well wishes congratulating him on such a feat.

Eminem has been candid about the height of his drug abuse, discussing with Vibe in 2009 that at the height of his addiction, he would take “anywhere between 10 to 20 Vicodin” per day, prompting the rapper to admit “the numbers got so high, I don’t even know what I was taking.” 

In a separate interview with Men’s Journal, he also admitted the damage the addiction to Vicodin was causing to his body: “The coating on the Vicodin and the Valium I'd been taking for years leaves a hole in your stomach, so to avoid a stomach ache, I was constantly eating — and eating badly.”

But it was an accidental methadone overdose in 2007 that prompted the rapper to make the conscious decision to go sober a year later. In the same Vibe interview, Eminem admitted that an “acquaintance” provided him with the medication, but wasn’t aware what it was until his hospitalization.

Doctors told him that the quantity of methadone he ingested was the equivalent of injecting four bags of heroin - the drug methadone is prescribed to tackle an addition to that opioid. 

“Had I known it was methadone, I probably wouldn't have taken it,” he told the magazine. 'But as bad as I was back then, I can't even say 100 per cent for sure ... even when they told me I almost died, it didn't click.'