How reality TV stole my childhood | Jack Osbourne

• I think a 37-year-old me today would say to 14-year-old me: "Just get ready for a wild ride." My dad had already a 15-year career by the time I landed on planet Earth. I was literally born, and then I was on a tour bus. Growing up on Ozzfest, you do get exposed to a lot of things that your average teen probably shouldn't be around.

My mom tried to maintain a sense of normalcy growing up, and then "The Osbornes" happened. Things just went at warp speed. It was the biggest show MTV had ever had at that point. We couldn't walk down the street. I felt like my adolescence just stopped. I was thrust into an adult world. I certainly wasn't ready mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and so for me, that's when the bad stuff began.

I had my first drink at 14, and I got sober at 17, so it wasn't a long period of time. I went pro real quick. It's a lot to unpack because I don't think people really are meant to deal with that level of fame at such a young age. I mean it all starts with fun. That's the thing with drug addiction and alcohol addiction. No one drinks and it instantly goes bad.

I have memories of walking out in New York City, and I couldn't go 20 feet without someone coming out of a bar, grabbing me, dragging me into a bar, and giving me alcohol. I was given Oxycontin. I just instantly was like, "Oh, okay, now I found my thing." I would snort like 300-400 milligrams of Oxycontin up my nose, and drink a bottle of Jack Daniels. That would kill most people.

There's the feeling of "Oh man, that was fun," and then when I go deeper into it, I'm like, "Oh man, that was kind of lonely." Like any addiction, when it becomes the only way that I can actually do anything, that's when the fun stops. I just wasn't able to function without it. And it became a shield. I would hide behind it. It became who I was. And it got dark very quickly.

I would have these moments of awareness. It would always be at night when I'm trying to go to sleep. So I would kind of pick apart these things I was doing, and the force behind it. And it would dawn on me, like, "Maybe I should probably not do that." And then the next morning I would wake up, and I'd be like, "Where are we going tonight?"

And it was at that point that my mom sent over my uncle and a security guy to come and collect me. I took off running down the beach. And I disappeared for the weekend, and then I basically just blacked out. And I went home, and I still had a lot of drugs on me still, a couple bottles of alcohol in a backpack.

And I walk in, and I was like, "All right." They were not happy. It's one thing to get yelled at by my parents, but when you get the disappointed "You've let people down, you've let the family down." At that time I was just, I was tired. I was so tired. I was so worn out. I was suffering from severe depression. I was having bouts of suicidal ideation. And I didn't think I was gonna kind of make it through the summer.

And my plan was, "I'll go in somewhere for like 28 days, and I'll just dry out, and then I'll be good to go." Yeah, it was a short-lived plan. I ended up going into a facility for about 60 days. It was very strange because, at this time, you couldn't detox an adolescent at a drug rehab. So I was in a psych ward with a lot of kids who were in various stages of mental health crisis.

But once getting into treatment, and once I got into the routine of it, I really enjoyed it. I liked it because I was being treated like a kid again. I had chores, I had responsibilities, and I liked being on a really strict schedule. But it wasn't this white light moment of "Oh my God, I'm saved." It was a gradual realization, and it kind of came in phases.

I would look back and reflect on, "I wonder why I didn't die? Maybe there is a greater purpose to this. Maybe I am meant to be here. If I am supposed to be here, what am I meant to do? Well, perhaps I should explore that." Very early on I was like, "Okay, this is just the way I was baked."

And the thing that has always stuck with me is that I can so easily go back to that person. That person is still very much in me. If I don't take care of myself, I become that alcoholic drug addict who wants to completely nuke my entire life because it's fun. I know that my personality is just that.

But ultimately, I'm grateful in that sense getting sober at 17 was probably the best thing I could have ever done for myself. I didn't become a monk. I saw the sunrise more times sober than I did when I was drinking. For me, having kids became the ultimate driving force. It focused all my energy.

You've got humans now that you need to take care of and help raise, and create good citizens. I love it. I love being a dad. It was just proof for me that the Universe unfolds exactly as it should. I've had such an amazing journey. I would never trade it for anything. I was lucky enough to come away to where I could be like, "I can look back and smile at it."