“I literally did nothing. I would just float around drink and f–king drink! And what’s crazy, I didn’t notice it until towards the end of it when I was like, ‘Oh, dude, I gotta stop. This is f–king insane,'” he explained. “I was drinking out of boredom. I would just wake up and build all vodka and a little eyedropper of cranberry or lemonade or something — literally straight vodka. I was drinking 2 gallons — not pints — gallons, the big handles, A DAY. That’s f–king crazy!”
“What’s important is I realized, ‘Whoa, dude, you’re drinking enough to like, you could probably die.’ And it wasn’t even phasing me,” he admitted. “I just became immune to it, and realized, ‘Whoa, this is a lot! This isn’t good.’ So it was time for me to pump the breaks and just get rid of it for a while.”
Lee, who married Brittany Furlan on Valentine’s Day last year, said that his wife also helped him realize he needed to curb his drinking. “She was like, ‘Baby, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody drink that much. You’re kind of scaring me,'” he recalled. “She was definitely concerned, and her concern obviously helped in my decision to just go get out of here.”
The drummer said he went to rehab for a month and also saw his doctor, who was shocked by his test results. “He’s like, ‘Dude, I don’t know what the deal is with you, but your liver’s fine, you’re super healthy, what are you made of?!'” Lee said of his physician’s reaction. “I’m like, ‘Did you get my papers mixed up with another guy named Lee?!'”
But he knows how lucky he is to be so healthy after all of the drinking he’s done. “I must have a horse shoe stuck in my butt! I’m really lucky, I’m grateful,” he shared. “I was doing some pretty serious damage that probably would’ve hurt anybody else pretty badly.”
Nowadays, the rocker is preparing to release another solo album. Titled Andro, Lee said that the record — set to drop Oct. 16 — is “pretty wild.” And in the meantime, he’s staying sober, at least for now.
“I don’t know if it’s a forever thing,” Lee said of his sobriety. “For now, I’m not drinking vodka today.”
Watch his full interview below.
