Ashley Monroe Opens Up About Pill Overdose That Led Her To Quit Cold Turkey: “You Don’t Have To Do A Lot Of Things To Die”

Opening up about a very personal struggle.

Ashley Monroe just released a new album Tennessee Lightning, and if her name sounds familiar, you might also know Mrs. Monroe as one third of the Pistol Annies and a close friend of Miranda Lambert, though she’s a stellar solo artist in her own right and has been one of my very favorites for a long time now.

The East Tennessee native has released five studio albums including the Grammy-nominated The Blade in 2015. Nominated for Best Country Album, the award ended up going to Chris Stapleton’s Traveller that year. She has been leaning into her pop sensibilities a bit more with some more recent releases, but her debut album Like A Rose will forever be in my top 10 list of favorite records.

While the new music is exciting, during a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Ashley opened up about a battle with pills that could’ve easily sent her to rehab. She admitted to overdosing in LA once before, and says it was dangerous the way she mixed different pills, like pain pills, with alcohol and other substances.

She says she cautions people that are younger than her to be careful with what, and how much, they’re putting into their bodies:

“Oh, yeah. I used pain pills off and on for a while. No, I did not rehab. And there was a chapter… because I definitely could have. I mean, looking back, I had OD’ed in LA once.

My deal was that I mixed things, that’s the thing I want people to know now, and always tell people that are younger than me, you know, don’t mix things. You don’t have to do a lot of things to die, that’s why there’s so many accidental overdoses. It’s not like you have to take a whole bottle of something.

You can just get one little Xanax, and a little pain pill and a double vodka. I mean, you stop breathing, you know. So that in my life I was like, no, I’m not gonna go to rehab. I’m not gonna do it anymore. I’m tired of them anyway. I flushed it down the toilet and I just didn’t think about it again.”

I imagine it’s not an easy thing to open up about, but luckily, it sounds like she was able to break the addiction on her own and continued to be healthy and not put herself at risk. In 2021, she was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer last year and has been in remission ever since, though it’s unclear if that had anything to do with her pill addiction or struggles.

Here’s the clip:

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The full interview is available below.

The post Ashley Monroe Opens Up About Pill Overdose That Led Her To Quit Cold Turkey: “You Don’t Have To Do A Lot Of Things To Die” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.