Jess Battison
Warning: This article contains discussion of alcoholism which some readers may find distressing.
The bassist of popular band Guns N’ Roses opened up in the past about the serious impact not drinking water for 12 years had on his body.
Duff McKagan was the longtime rocker on the bass for the band whose members were known for having various addictions. And in the 1990s, a very real health scare caused the musician to rethink his habits.
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Bakc in 2023, the now-61-year-old previously joined the former Van Halen singer Sammy Harger for his series, Rock & Roll Road Trip, as they discussed how the classic rock and roll lifestyle took its toll on them.
McKagan opened up more about his deep fall into addiction that got so bad he ‘just drank alcohol’ and not ‘any water’ for over a decade.
“I literally didn’t have a glass of water for 12 years,” he clarified.
“My body was failing, my hair was falling out.”
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The bassist admitted that by the time he was 28 years old, he thought he would make it to 30 ‘and that’s going to be it’.
And at the time, he said he was ‘ok’ with the ‘live fast, die young’ mindset. But one morning he woke up with what he thought was ‘some sharp gas pains’ only to find it was much more sinister.
“My pancreas had burst,” he said. “That was my bottom line.”
His organ reportedly swelled to the size of a rugby ball and rupturing. Digestive enzymes then leaked into his body and caused third-degree vomit, with the pain so bad he claimed he’d begged the surgeon to kill him.
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McKagan eventually got his pancreas removed as a result, and recalled how his mum with Parkinson’s visited him in hospital while in a wheelchair, crying as her youngest son was laying with ‘tubes coming out of me’.
“And I would see myself from above the bed,” he recalled. “And I’m like, ‘The order of things is wrong here man. I should be taking care of her.’
“And ‘I f**ked up and I’m sorry’, and I would make it better.”
He said that when he was discharged, he was offered rehab, but he knew already he ‘was done’, and his life ‘changed 180 degrees from that moment to now’.
Speaking to BBC’s Hardtalk programme previously, McKagan described it as a ‘real, real wake-up call’ and he ended up ‘drinking water for the first time’, starting his sobriety journey.
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"I thought, if nothing else, I will make it better for my Mom. I will try to rise to the occasion of being a good son. That's really what started my whole upward swing,” he added.
Please drink responsibly. If you want to discuss any issues relating to alcohol in confidence, contact Drinkline on 0300 123 1110, 9am–8pm weekdays and 11am–4pm weekends for advice and support.