For the first time, Paula Abdul reveals how hard it was for her to detox from a 12-year-long painkiller addiction.
“I could have killed myself,” she tells this month’s issue of Ladies’ Home Journal.
The withdrawal was “the worst thing. I was freezing cold, then sweating hot, then chattering and in so much pain. It was excruciating. But at my very core, I did not like existing the way I had been.”
LATEST: The ‘Idol’ Drama You Didn’t See
MORE: Adam, Allison Round Out ‘Idol’ A-Team
MORE: David Cook to Continue Tour in Honor of Brother Adam
Although Abdul claims that she never filmed an episode of “Idol” while under the influence — and vehemently denied any illegal drug use in the past — she did spend at least part of the last decade relying on painkillers and Chinese medicine to quietly combat her injury-induced chronic debilitating pain, she says.
Years of cheerleading, dancing injuries and two crashes — a 1992 car crash and a 1993 plane crash that required 15 spinal surgeries — contributed to a diagnosis of reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome in 2005. The illness left her with disabling pain, chattering teeth and shingles-like lesions.
To relieve the symptoms, Abdul wore a patch that delivered a pain medication that she claims was 80 times more potent than morphine. She also sometimes took a muscle relaxer, she said.
But that’s all ancient history. Last Thanksgiving, Abdul gave up the meds for good during a stay at Calsbad, Calif.’s La Costa Resort and Spa.
Now, she’s in shape and gearing up to to relaunch her music career.
Abdul is hitting the stage for a live performance on “American Idol” Wednesday night.
She’ll leave the judging to others to sing “I’m Just Here for the Music” — the first single off an album due out in the fall.
Since she’s preparing to return to the music scene, the timing seemed right to bare her soul over the drug habit that she’s recently kicked.