LINKIN PARK's MIKE SHINODA Recalls Helping CHESTER BENNINGTON With Drug Problem

According to The Pulse Of Radio, LINKIN PARK vocalist Mike Shinoda recalled in a recent interview with Metro magazine how the members of the band pulled together to help singer Chester Bennington overcome his problems with drugs and alcohol. Bennington had experimented with both since he was young, but alcoholism took a tight grip on his life once the band became massively successful.

Shinoda said, "When Chester had some problems, everybody jumped up to help him and tell him how supportive we wanted to be and how much it means to us that he was doing something positive. We're lucky to have a band full of guys who have their head screwed on straight. A lot of life experience goes into that, but we just support each other. We have each other's back. At the end of the day we love what we do. We're not willing to throw that away on anything."

Bennington told The Pulse Of Radio a while back just how bad his drinking problem got. "I lived on alcohol," he said. "It was either beer, or Jack and Coke, or Jack Daniels in a pint glass with ice. And then it got to the point where my wife said to me about seven months after we got together, she goes, 'I don't think there's been a day since I've known you that you haven't drank.' And I was like, 'What are you talking about? That's crazy' — as I'm drinking a Jack and Coke. That was where my life went."

Bennington also said in a recent interview with TeamRock that he turned to drugs and alcohol after being sexually abused as a child. He explained, "I got really, really bad. When I was 13 to 16, I was doing a ton of LSD and a lot of drinking. Then, when we couldn’t find acid, we turned to speed. I got really bad, really quickly."