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Rush Limbaugh Admits Addiction to Painkillers
Fri Oct 10,10:15 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Conservative broadcaster Rush Limbaugh, one of the most influential radio commentators in America, told his millions of listeners on Friday he is addicted to prescription painkillers and is checking himself into a drug treatment center.

Limbaugh, beloved by the political right for his biting attacks on liberals, also acknowledged that "authorities are conducting an investigation" but said he was not at liberty to offer further details until the probe is complete.


The revelation was the latest controversy to engulf the nationally syndicated radio personality. On Oct. 1, he resigned as a football commentator on ESPN's "NFL Sunday Countdown" after less than a month amid a public uproar over his on-air comments suggesting Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated by the media because he is black.


Telling listeners he has "always tried to be honest with you and open about my life," Limbaugh said he began taking painkillers years ago when they were prescribed to him for pain he was suffering following spinal surgery.


"Unfortunately, the surgery was unsuccessful and I continued to have severe pain in my lower back and also in my neck due to herniated discs," Limbaugh said at the end of a live broadcast from his studio in New York City.


"I am still experiencing that pain. Rather than opt for additional surgery for these conditions, I chose to treat the pain with prescribed medication. This medication turned out to be highly addictive."


He did not specify the medication he was taking, but media reports have identified the painkillers as OxyContin, Lorcet and hydrocodone.


Limbaugh, 52, said he would check himself into a drug treatment center for the next 30 days immediately following his broadcast "to once and for all break the hold this highly addictive medication has on me." He said he had entered medical facilities for treatment twice before in recent years.


GUESTS TO HOST PROGRAM


Limbaugh said live, daily broadcasts of his program, which reaches about 20 million weekly listeners, would continue in his absence with "an array guest hosts you have come to know and respect."


The disclosure follows recent media reports, first surfacing in the supermarket tabloid the National Enquirer, that Limbaugh was under investigation by the state attorney's office in Palm Beach County, Florida., where he lives.


Limbaugh went into no detail about the probe, only saying he had been asked to limit his public comments for the time being. "So I will only say that the stories you have read and heard contain inaccuracies and distortions, which I will clear up when I am free to speak about them."


Limbaugh, who renewed his contract two years ago in a deal reportedly worth $285 million, has been a conservative darling and liberal nemesis since launching his show in 1985 amid the Republican revolution of Ronald Reagan (news - web sites), a man he has called "the greatest president of the 20th century."


Brash and colorful -- he coined the term "femi-Nazis" to disparage women's rights groups and once said the "difference between Los Angeles and yogurt is that yogurt comes with less fruit" -- he helped spawn a wave of right-wing commentators and moralists who proliferate on radio and television.


But Limbaugh was contrite in addressing his addiction.


"I am not making any excuses," he said, insisting he did not want to be counted among those celebrities who "have emerged from treatment centers to great fanfare and praise for conquering great demons."


"I am no role model," he said. "I am no victim and do not portray myself as such. I take full responsibility for my problem.





Limbaugh made headlines in the fall of 2001 when he revealed on air that he had gone virtually deaf as the result of a rare auto-immune disease of the inner ear, but cochlear implant surgery succeeded in restoring much of his hearing.