NIKKI SIXX Shares Thoughts On America's Heroin Epidemic: 'People Don't Know What They're Getting, And They're Dying'

During the September 13 edition of his "Sixx Sense" radio show, MÖTLEY CRÜE bassist Nikki Sixx — who struggled with substance abuse throughout his early and mid-career and was even supposedly declared clinically dead after a heroin overdose in 1987 made his heart stop for two minutes — shared his thoughts on the current heroin epidemic sweeping the country. He said (hear audio below): "I just read in the news recently twenty-four people died on a Friday night alone in Akron, Ohio from heroin overdoses. And a lot of the heroin is mixed with fentanyl. That's what Prince died from. And carfentanil is like an elephant tranquilizer, for large animals, and 40 percent of Ohio's overdoses is attributed to this.

"What [drug] dealers are doing is they're taking heroin and they're cutting it with fentanyl to give it a little extra kick.

"Now, when you get a prescription, and it says how many milligrams are on it, and even if it's something like oxycodone, you can see how many milligrams are on it, and you know what you're getting each time. Of course your body adjusts to that. Now I'm talking about addicts. Oxycodone is a painkiller, so people who get surgeries will be given that, and you get addicted to it very easily, and then they start going to the street once because they're addicted once they feel better from the surgery or whatever it is, and then they start buying heroin, and then they're finding that they don't know what they're doing. Nobody knows what they're doing.

"As a recovering heroin addict, I'm telling you, you don't know what you're doing. When you buy a balloon of Persian heroin, you don't know what's in it, and that's what's happening."

He continued: "It just breaks my heart to think that something so deadly… I mean, this is fifty times stronger than heroin, and people don't know what they're getting, and they're dying.

"When you're addicted, it's exactly that — you're addicted; you have to have it. The only way out is through death or through withdrawal. You're a drug addict. You're not thinking rationally. You go back to the dealer who gives you the best price and gives you the best dope. And you always say, 'I'm gonna quit tomorrow,' and tomorrow never comes. You're going to die, or you're gonna get clean. And if you're listening to this right now and you're an addict, I'm telling you you're gonna die if you don't get clean. And I'm telling you if you're not using drugs and you ever thought about it, you're gonna get 'em and you're gonna die. You're not gonna get 'em and you're gonna party. You're not gonna get 'em and you're gonna try it out. You're not gonna get 'em and have a good time and say, 'I have a story to tell my friends, that I did a little heroin in the locker room with my friends,' or, 'We snuck behind someone's house and we smoked a little heroin,' or, 'One of our friends, who's super cool and has a nice car, got a little heroin, got some pills. We're gonna do 'em just on weekends.' And then weekends turns into a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and here comes Monday and here comes Tuesday, and you know what? It only takes five to seven days to become an addict. And you start to get the twitch, you start to get the itch, and you go, you start buying it off the street, and next thing you know, you're fucking dead. Don't do it."

Asked by his "Sixx Sense" co-host Jenn Marino what the first step is to getting clean for someone who is in the throes of addiction, Nikki said: "The first step is acknowledging. So a lot of us addicts — and when I say 'addict,' I'm a recovering addict, but I believe I'll always be an addict. A lot of us addicts aren't ready to admit that, and some are, even in addiction.

"When I was in the depths of heroin addiction, I knew I was a heroin addict — obviously. I knew I wanted to quit. I knew I wanted to get off. I didn't really know how; I tried a lot of different ways. I had some people around me who [were] very supportive. I had some people take me under their wing, and I had some people help me get into a rehab.

"I wish that I had the Internet back then and I could look up things and find information about it."

He added: "When you're an addict, and you're kind of in a hole, and it doesn't matter if you're in a million-dollar mansion or if you're living on the street, you're still in a hole — you're in a dark hole, with a cloud over your head and you feel bad about yourself and you know you wanna get out, but when you go through withdrawal, it hurts; I mean, it's so painful. And you know all you need is a taste of that devil and you will feel better, and so you'll quit tomorrow. And the way out is to admit that you're an alcoholic or a drug addict and admit that you're powerless — you're completely powerless — and then you have to let go. And there's programs out there — there's NA, there's AA, there's CA, for cocaine addicts, there's GA, for gamblers. The list goes on and on.

"I could go on for hours about this, but it's best if people can research it themselves. If you have a loved one in your life... If you're addicted yourself, know that you're loved, that you're not alone, and that there is help. And we'll pray for you that you'll take some of this information and run with it. Because, if anything, I would like people to at least look at me and go, 'That guy was the worst of the worst, and he's living a blessed life right now,' You can have that too. You just have to show up, man."

Sixx's memoir, "The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star", which was supposedly taken from actual journals Sixx kept in the late '80s while in the grip of a near-fatal heroin addiction, was originally released September 18, 2007 via MTV Pocketbooks/Simon & Schuster and debuted at #7 on the New York Times non-fiction best-seller list.