Nick Carter First Hit the Bottle at Age 2
Remember how Backstreet Boy Nick Carter fingered Paris Hilton for his partying problems? Turns out, the hotel heiress may not be to blame for his issues after all, considering Carter started boozing when he was still in diapers. Seriously.
"Family legend has it that when I was two years old, I crawled into one of the Yankee Rebel's liquor storage rooms where I was caught drinking for the first time," he revealed in his memoir 'Facing the Music And Living to Tell About It (via RadarOnline). "My parents always laughed at that. I laughed too, for a while, and then I didn't laugh at it anymore."
"I began drinking heavily in my teens and then moved on to drugs at eighteen or nineteen, starting with marijuana and moving up to cocaine, ecstasy, and prescription painkillers among other substances," he said. Considering he pretty much ran the gamut right there, what other substances were left? Glue for huffing? Heroin? Meth? Who knows?
He said his bandmates didn't approve of his behavior, but also couldn't really stop it. "They told me that I had the potential to be a better person and make more of my talents. They knew I had a good heart and soul and wasn't using my head," Carter added. "The guys warned me many times that my partying was out of control and that I was headed for serious trouble."
Carter then described his arrests -- one for resisting arrest without violence, another for DUI, both of which resulted from benders that often combined alcohol, prescription drugs and cocaine, but neither was a wake up call for the singer.
It wasn't until Carter saw the physical toll that the drugs and alcohol took on his appearance that he took steps to get clean. "My face looked bloated, the way it would in a carnival fun house mirror," he revealed. "My body was twice its normal width due to the 50 pounds I'd gained from hard drinking, overeating and a lack of exercise. My skin was ashen gray tending towards translucent," he admitted. "I had never been in such frightening shape emotionally, mentally or physically. I was scared for my life. My body seemed to be crashing and my brain was close behind."
Except that still wasn't enough to set Carter straight. He made an appointment to get his heart tested for problems, and the night before he was supposed to get the results, he went on yet another bender. "I partied like it was my last night on Earth … I drank like I was trying to drown the demons inside my body. Then I did enough blow to make up for the six months I'd stayed clean."
After receiving a myopathy diagnosis, Carter still didn't quit partying. "I drank, did drugs and partied until I was paralyzed and passed out. I woke up in a hotel room with my head pounding so hard I couldn't focus my eyes … My heart was pounding so loud, I thought someone was at the door," he confessed. "I decided my body was trying to get me to pay attention one last time … It was change or die."
Carter finally got clean and went to rehab, but admits that it's still a struggle everyday to stay sober. "I'm not perfect now," he said. "I still slip up when it comes to drinking. But I'm alive and great things have happened for me in the last few years. I would have missed them. I'm glad I didn't."
We bet all the fans on the BSB cruise are too.