In a recent statement, the well-known musician Travis Barker told his fans that surviving the 2008 plane crash was his ‘wake-up call.’ If that did not happen, he wouldn’t be sober even now.
In an interview to the Men’s Health Magazine, he said,
People are always like, ‘Did you go to rehab? And I say, ‘No, I was in a plane crash. That was my rehab. Lose three of your friends and almost die? That was my wake-up call. If I wasn’t in a crash, I would have probably never quit.
Travis is currently a drummer in a band called Blink-182. In the interview, he also said that he was smoking a lot of marijuana and even taking prescription painkillers. This was before the 2008 South Carolina plane crash in which two pilots were killed (Sarah Lemmon and James Bland) along with security guard (Charles Still) and even his assistant (Chris Baker).
The challenge was in my mind just to prove them wrong. I had to wean myself off of every drug.
Travis Barker and his friend DJ AM (Adam Goldstein) miraculously survived the crash. However, Goldstein later died in a separate incident of a drug overdose in 2009.
In 2017, Barker talked about quitting painkillers altogether, but some doctors suggested that he will likely need to take them for the rest of his life. He went on to say,
There are a million things that could happen to me. I could die riding my skateboard. I could get in a car accident. I could get shot. Anything could happen. I could have a brain aneurysm and die. So why should I still be afraid of airplanes?
In Monday’s interview, he also said that he had flushed every drug, including the ones he really needed. Ever since the incident in 2008, Barker hasn’t boarded a single airplane.
