TOMMY LEE Says He Was Drinking Two Gallons Of Vodka A Day 'For A Long Time': 'Your Liver Is On Crutches At That Point'

During an appearance on comedian Bill Maher's "Club Random" podcast, MÖTLEY CRÜE drummer Tommy Lee opened up about his previous battle with the bottle. He said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Alcohol's such a fuckin weird one, because... Fuck! It's just — it's easy to fall in love with, the way it makes you feel, the way it makes you relax, and then all of a sudden you're, like, 'Fuck! I'm drinking two gallons of vodka a day?' This is not… You're trying to kill yourself now."

When Maher expressed his shock at the amount of alcohol Lee was drinking every day, Tommy said: "Yeah. Two gallons of shit. I swear to you — dude, I swear to God."

Asked by Bill how long he was able to drink two gallons of vodka on a daily basis, Tommy said: "Fuck, man — for a long time." He added: "Your liver is on crutches at that point; it's just barely functioning."

According to Lee, he managed to avoid any serious health problems despite his excessive alcohol use over a long period.

"I can't believe… I pinch myself on a daily basis," the 61-year-old drummer said. "I just did the full body scan, where they do, head to toe everything, and I can't believe — smoking, drinking, all the fucking dumb shit, or the fun shit that I've done. Dude, the doctor was, like, 'You're good.' And I was, like, 'Are you sure you have the…? Let me see. Is that my name on there, or is there some Japanese guy in here that you have his results that you're reading from? Because I find that fucking impossible. This is impossible.'

Asked by Maher how old he was when he eventually quit drinking, Lee said: "In '89, '90 is when, as a band, we decided, we were, like, 'Okay dude, so someone's gonna not wake up one morning. This is getting fucking ridiculous.'"

He added: "You know what Halcions were? We would take a handful of those and fucking pound a bottle of Jack and then go out for the evening. You take those to go to sleep for a long time. So it was that kind of shit where someone was gonna fucking not wake up."

When Tommy first revealed the extent of his vodka-drinking habit in an October 2020 interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, he said: "I didn't notice it until towards the end of it, when I was, like, 'Oh dude, I've got to stop.' Like, I was drinking just out of boredom. I would just wake up and be just building, just all vodka and just a little eyedropper of cranberry or lemonade. I was drinking two gallons — not pints, not quarts, but gallons, gallons, the big handles, a day. That's fucking crazy!

"What's important is I realized, 'Whoa, dude, you're drinking enough to, like, you could probably die.' And it wasn't even phasing me. I just became immune to it, and realized, 'Whoa, this is a lot. This isn't good.' So it was time for me to pump the breaks and just get rid of it for a while."

Lee went on to say that his wife, Brittany Furlan, whom he married in February 2019, was part of the reason he decided to sober up.

"She was, like, 'Baby, I don't know, I don't think I've ever even seen anybody drink that much. Like, you're kind of scaring me.' She was definitely concerned, and her concern obviously helped in my decision to just go get out of here."

This isn't the first time Lee has been sober. He previously said that he had been sober for four years at one point.

"I go through these phases where I want to live a different life and fuck all the dumb shit," he said. "Then I decide, 'You know what? I don't want to live like that anymore. I want to have fun and play and be fucked up and stupid.'"

Lee said that he knew how lucky he was to be so healthy after all of the drinking he's done. "I must have a horse shoe stuck in my butt. I'm really lucky. I'm grateful," he said. "I was doing some pretty serious damage that probably would've hurt anybody else pretty badly."

The "lethal dose" of alcohol for a 132-pound adult is around one liter in spirits, according to Alcohol.org.nz. Two gallons is equivalent to a little more than 7.5 liters.

Alcohol poisoning can be impacted by a person’s size, weight, health tolerance level and rate of consumption in a designated time period, according to nonprofit medical center Mayo Clinic.