BLUR - BLUR DRUMMER ADMITS COKE BATTLE

BLUR DRUMMER ADMITS COKE BATTLE

BLUR drummer DAVE ROWNTREE has admitted he battled an addiction to cocaine at the height of the band's fame in the 1990s. Rowntree, 43, revealed his former addiction in an article urging the U.K. government to review their anti-drugs policy in British newspaper The Guardian. He writes, "Certainly when I first discovered alcohol, and later cocaine, the effect was almost religious in its intensity, and all my problems seemed to melt away. I didn't start using regularly until the '90s, but as my tolerance increased, I used more. "However, my experience of life when not on drink or drugs got progressively worse. The world became an increasingly hostile place, relationships got more difficult and an all-encompassing sense of dread and paranoia set in. Drink and drugs became progressively less effective in soothing those feelings. "The key point is that all the way along, I thought my behaviour was normal and it was the rest of the world that had gone mad. I had no idea my experience was different to anyone else's because I had nothing to measure it against. "I managed to get help before they destroyed my life, and these days I'm active in the recovery community."