Pete Doherty has discussed his recovery from drug issues, saying he has “managed to get out of the addictive cycle”.
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The Libertines frontman has been clean for over two years, and recently revealed in an interview that he “nearly lost my feet” while he was battling drug addiction.
In a new interview with The Guardian, Doherty said he is “surprised I’m not dead” due to his drug abuse, adding: “I’ve hedged my bets with all the scrapes, skirmishes and disasters, but I do believe in corny, happy Hollywood endings. I’m not a good guy, but I’m not evil.”
Doherty added: “I’ve managed to get out of the addictive cycle – which I maintained all along I was quite happy in – but I was pretty fucked, and I’ve never really admitted to that. I’ve entered a phase of rejuvenation.
“Marriage is the bolster; I have the love and support of someone I love. I’m blessed to be alive, not sat in a hedge in Old Street, injecting into my groin.”
Having moved to France with his new wife Katia de Vidas in early 2020, Doherty has credited meeting his latest collaborator Frédéric Lo – who released ‘The Fantasy Life Of Poetry & Crime’ with Doherty earlier this year – with helping him kick his addiction.
Speaking to NME back in January, Doherty explained more about how he had “managed to somehow keep on the straight and narrow”, and said that his experience of lockdown in Normandy “completely separated [him] from England and from addiction”.
“I was getting clean. I suppose there was just so much recklessness for such a long period of time and not really caring what anyone else thought that it reverses, and all of a sudden you go from having no pressure to being hyper-sensitively aware of this new expectation,” he said.
“I think the creative process is like an addiction in itself. I need to write songs, and I’ve never really got to the bottom of it.”
Later this year, Doherty will release a new memoir called A Likely Lad. The musician worked with Simon Spence on the book, which is set to come out on June 16 via Little Brown.
A synopsis of the book promises “Doherty’s version of the story – the genuine man behind the fame and infamy. This is a rock memoir like no other.”