Papa Roach singer Jacoby Shaddix celebrated his eighth year of sobriety on Wednesday (February 19th).
The band posted a video of Shaddix and drummer Tony Palermo marking the occasion by hitting “the smallest bar in the world” in Milan, Italy and enjoying a “mocktail” — a fake cocktail consisting of lime, vanilla syrup and pink grapefruit soda.
Shaddix toasts, “To happiness and health,” while telling the bartender, “No alcohol for eight years — me — and I'm coming to celebrate, to have a fake (cocktail).”
Eight years ago, as the band was working on its 2012 album The Connection, Shaddix hit rock bottom. He had been battling his addictions for a decade, cleaning up and then relapsing over and over. After the near-dissolution of his marriage and a battle with suicidal depression, Shaddix finally got sober once and for all.
Shaddix told us a while back why he had to put the brakes on: “It's like a major change in my life, you know, something like — I use, like, booze as a way to, like, not deal with life, you know what I'm saying? And you know, I came to a point, something in my life had to change. I was just like, it was either, like, I was coming home in a bodybag or something had to give. And I just kind of, like, hit bottom and realized, like, that was it — like, I had to, like, kick that.”
Papa Roach is currently on a European tour promoting its 2019 Who Do You Trust? album.