FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH's JEREMY SPENCER Offers Word Of Advice To Those Struggling With Alcohol Addiction

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH drummer Jeremy Spencer urges anyone battling alcohol or drug addiction to seek out help before it's too late.

The drummer, who celebrated two years of sobriety in January, released his autobiography, "Death Punch'd: Surviving Five Finger Death Punch's Metal Mayhem", on September 2 via HarperCollins.

Asked what he would say to someone out there struggling with addiction, Spencer told "HardDrive Radio" (see video below): "You definitely have to live your own life and choose your own path. And I'm not one to stop and say, 'You need to stop and get it in order.' You're gonna have to make that choice for yourself. But you can always talk to someone. And I know until you're ready to stop, you're not going to. But a lot of the times, they say, you have to hit the wall in order to wake up and then decide to make the change. And, for me, I hit the wall, and fortunately, it wasn't hard enough to where it killed me, and I hope that's the case for you out there too. But there is help available."

Regarding how difficult it has been to stay sober on the road, Spencer said: "At first, it wasn't really hard, it was just different, because I had such a routine out there on tour. So the first time, being out on tour, not doing it, I was, like, 'This is weird, but…' I was actually writing the book the first time, so it was a helpful outlet. And everyone's really supportive — they know my deal, and they would prefer me to be alive, I think, rather than dead. And we're fortunate enough to have three buses [when we're touring], so I'm on the mellow bus, and I'm away from the debauchery."

Spencer said in an interview with a New Mexico radio station that one especially bad episode with drugs and alcohol convinced him that it was time to finally get clean and sober. Spencer explained, "It had been about two days. I was just doing coke and meth and drinking the whole time. I think I had a straw in one hand and a bottle of Jack in the other for about the past 20 hours… all of a sudden my body just went, 'Enough.' And I started convulsing, and my heart was kind of starting to skip beats. It was really scary."

Spencer continued, "I started really thinking about how bummed out my parents were gonna be, that their son, who left home at 19 years old to achieve this dream, had finally achieved it, and then he's gonna die. I just felt terrible about myself and terrible about letting them down. So I thought, 'If you get out of this one this time, you're gonna fix it.'"

Spencer said he went home and checked himself into rehab on his 39th birthday, saying, "I've been clean ever since."

The drummer told The Pulse Of Radio that he simply got tired of feeling awful all the time. "We used to hit it pretty hard out here and I would wake up just feeling rotted, you know, and you know, I had enough of feeling like crap every day and so I stopped," he said. "And now I feel a lot better. I get up at like six in the morning, on fire, man."

Spencer has committed a percentage of his personal income from the book to support NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals, which represents more than 75,000 addiction counselors, educators and other addiction-focused health care professionals in the United States, Canada and abroad.

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH begins its fall tour with VOLBEAT on September 16 in Salt Lake City.