OZZY OSBOURNE: 'I Should Be Dead A Thousand Times'

Eddie Rowley of Ireland's Sunday World recently conducted an interview with Ozzy Osbourne. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On the December 2003 crash that almost ended his career...and his life:

"When I had my motorcycle accident, believe it or not, I went on this incredible journey in my head when I was in a coma.

"One of the places I went to was Dublin and I was in this bar drinking Guinness and there were all these little people in the bar, just like all that bullsh*t they say about Ireland and the leprechauns.

"It was an abstract place that I went to. I suppose it's because my son, Louis [from his first marriage], lives in Ireland and I had been invited to his wedding there around that time and I didn't make it. I suppose in my unconscious state of mind I was there in a dream situation."

On his life:

"Yeah, it's been incredible. Now they want me to write my memoirs, but where do I begin? I used to regularly drink myself into a blackout, so it would be a very thin book because I can't remember f**k-all.

"MÖTLEY CRÜE did a book and they said I snorted a line of ants one time. I can't f**kin' remember that!"

On his second wife, Sharon:

"We've got our 25th wedding anniversary coming up on July 4th. If it wasn't for my wife I wouldn't be here. Sharon saved my life every day. I mean, I should be dead a thousand times. I've kissed death so many times now I think I'm married to the f**kin' thing as well.

"But I'm alive today. I guess I'm on borrowed time. I went through it and came out the other end. I'm clean now, I don't even smoke cigarettes, which I can't believe.

"I often say to Sharon, 'Did you ever think I'd stop smoking?' She says, 'Darling, I thought I'd find you dead when that happened, with a Marlboro stuck in your mouth.'

"But I've quit everything. I don't do drugs, not unless they're prescribed from a doctor (he suffers from a condition called Parkinsonian Syndrome, which causes his tremors) and I take the amount that I'm told.

"I have major anxiety attacks these days. I don't know why. It's probably because I've been married and I've got kids and now I'm sober and everything is real.

"But I don't miss the drink or the drugs. I go to AA meetings with other alcoholics to discuss it, and so far so good. I didn't want to die a f**kin' drunk, or from an over-dose.

"The drugs and the alcohol, I've now discovered, were a symptom of some kind of emotional problems, probably from when I was a small kid."

On having a tough time fitting in with school life because he suffered from undiagnosed attention deficit disorder and dyslexia:

"When I was at school they never understood what dyslexia was, and I'm terribly dyslexic. I start reading a book and I'm reading a line backwards, or I read the same thing over and over again before I realize what I'm doing.

"All my children have the same problem and the reason I moved to Los Angeles in the first place was because England or Great Britain didn't have very many schools for dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and LA does. I mean, they have everything there, including f**kin' pet psychiatrists!"

(Thanks: Slayerdiabolus)