It took four episodes for Chris Cornell’s daughter Lily Cornell Silver’s mental health podcast, Mind Wide Open, to have its first rock star guest — and Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan didn’t disappoint.
McKagan discussed dealing with both addiction and anxiety. He recalled his first panic attack at the age of 16, when he was taking a shower. “Suddenly I couldn’t breathe, and I was sweating in the shower … and I remember just pushing the shower door open and crawling out on the floor, and yelling for my mom,”
McKagan recounted his own struggles with alcohol, after some prompting from Lily, who talked about her father’s addictions. According to Duff, “there’s so much sugar in alcohol, with a guy like myself, and I think with your dad, as well, you can’t just do a little.”
He said he was drinking “up to a full gallon of vodka a day” at the height of his alcoholism, and also doing cocaine, which, he explained, “is not good for panic attacks,” so he would take pills to bring him “down from too much cocaine and alcohol.”
You can check out the whole episode below and more about Lily Cornell Silver’s podcast and mission at MindWideOpenProject.com.
