Travis Barker stopped smoking weed after receiving a frightening health diagnosis. The Blink-182 drummer revealed that doctors found precancer of the esophagus, a warning that finally convinced him to give up a habit he had struggled to imagine living without.
Barker discussed the diagnosis during the November 11 episode of Big Bro With Kid Cudi. According to Entertainment Weekly, he admitted that he still misses smoking, but said the health scare made him realize he needed to stop.
“I only quit because I got diagnosed with precancer of the esophagus,” Barker told Kid Cudi. “I loved blunts, and I would smoke too much. So that was the only thing.”
His doctor’s warning eventually changed his perspective. “This is your warning shot, Trav. Don’t f– — around. You gotta stop smoking,” Barker recalled being told. “Or I would have never stopped. I thought I could be like Willie Nelson and smoke ‘til the day I died.”
How Travis Barker’s 2008 plane crash became his turning point for sobriety
The esophageal diagnosis was not the first major health scare to change Barker’s lifestyle. The drummer previously described the September 2008 plane crash as the event that pushed him to quit opiates and other drugs.
Barker and his friend Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein survived the crash in South Carolina, but four other people on board died. They included Barker’s assistant Chris “Lil Chris” Baker, his bodyguard Charles “Che” Still, and pilots Sarah Lemmon and James Bland.
Barker suffered severe burns across much of his body and spent months receiving treatment. He later recalled spending six months in a burn center and undergoing multiple surgeries.
“Life hit me, obviously…way bigger than I ever thought it would,” he told Kid Cudi. “That was my time to get sober. I stopped with all the opiates, stopped with all the weed. Under the worst circumstances, but I did get sober.”
Barker has also described how difficult recovery was in an earlier conversation with Zane Lowe on Apple Music. He said his history of recreational painkiller use complicated his treatment, and he struggled with medication while recovering from his injuries.
Originally reported on ComingSoon.
