More recently, your anxiety led to addiction. How were you able to overcome that?

The addiction thing—see, Xanax and alcohol just crossed paths. I guess, if you want to call it addiction, it’s more of the alcoholism thing. The Xanax shit was like an unhealthy habit. Taking Xanax and alcohol, you black out at some point. You don’t remember shit. I was going through a lot of that shit, combining that and then to do drugs, it’s kind of cool to just chill and not feel shit.

It was mostly traveling, though, that led to Xanax—getting on planes and long tour rides. Then you get off tour and it’s like, “Why not pop a Xanax? It’s cool.” But drugs make you depressed afterwards so then you take [more] drugs to stop being depressed briefly and you’re more depressed afterwards, so you’ve gotta figure it out. And then, not taking them don’t feel good, either. That’s a weird kind of depression, too. It puts you in a weird mood. It’s just the only road to recovery is being sad anyway for a little bit.

For a little bit, but then you ride that out?

You ride that out, yeah, and then you fuck up your inhibitors and you fuck up your receptors and shit in your brain. Take enough Xanax and you won’t be able to achieve that reward feeling—dopamine and all that shit—so alcohol, too much of that shit, you’ll never be able to get that high again. I think I’m going through that dissatisfaction type of thing.

Dissatisfaction with what?

Just by default. Just mood. Just like everything’s alright. It’s cool. I’m happy with everything, just not really high off life. I’m trying to catch that.

You’ve said that your kids kind of help with that, right?

Yeah, my kids are tight, bro. I see my kids and I get this automatic switch of, “I’ve gotta be chipper. I’ve gotta be happy.” ’Cause if you ain’t happy, they can tell.

How did your relationships with your biological father and your stepdad impact your own approach to parenting?

I think my stepdad made me real playful and my biological dad made me realize I need to be there as much as possible. Shouldn’t too many things happen to make you not be able to be present for your kids… [My stepdad] is a Leo. I’m a Taurus, so we’re real warm signs and shit. He’s about eight or nine years younger than my dad, so he was a lot more active when I was a kid. A lot more. To have somebody who’s outside, playing with toys with you and that type of shit, it was cool to have that after not having a dad for a minute.

So you grew up with him?

Yeah. [My mom and stepdad] have been together now like 17 years, I think. I was like 7 or 8. I didn’t really fuck with him a lot until I was about 14, 15. But that was way past the toys shit. I’m just reflecting on it now, that he used to do a lot of cool shit. He gave me candy and shit, like take me to Six Flags, that I didn’t appreciate a lot—shit I didn’t really give a fuck about, shit I complained about at the time. I wanted my dad and not to be with this dude, but thinking about it [now], that shit was tight.