The Darkness star Justin Hawkins recalls hitting 'rock bottom' in drug addiction as he marks 20 years of sobriety

Published: 10:44 EDT, 24 September 2026 | Updated: 10:49 EDT, 24 September 2026 Justin Hawkins has recalled hitting 'rock bottom' amid the height of his drug addiction in the early noughties. The Darkness star, 51, famously spent £150k of his estimated £6million fortune on cocaine, living a life of excess which caused him to quit the band in 2006, and go into recovery.But last month Justin marked 20 years sober from drugs and alcohol as he admitted it is still 'one day at a time'. Speaking on the latest episode of Andrew Gold's Heretics podcast he said: 'I sometimes think about what it would be like if I had a sip of alcohol now and I think it would probably burn.'I think now it's been so long that I can't even imagine drinking. So to ask me what it tasted like or felt like is a difficult question to answer honestly.'He continued: 'I can still remember the smell of cocaine and the numbing sensation. The Darkness star Justin Hawkins recalls hitting 'rock bottom' in drug addiction as he marks 20 years of sobriety'I remember bits of my nose falling out and stuff and like whole tubes of like the mucus kind of structure coming out. Yeah, I did a lot of it.'Asked what marked the moment he realised he had to change, Justin admitted: 'there was some stuff that happened that was so cataclysmically awful that I changed my life.' Refusing to detail the nature of what happened, Justin explained: 'There was something bad happened. Something really bad happened actually.'But those are what you might call the wakeup calls, aren't they? 'There were a lot of moments that I'm going to only euphemistically refer to because there's some stuff that happened that was so cataclysmically awful that I changed my life and I'm not going to sit here and talk to you about it.' He continued: 'Yeah, there's [moments] where you you feel shame and you know you've hurt other people and that's what makes you stop.'Justin explained: 'Like this is what I love about alcohol and drugs and stuff. It's like in the first instance you're looking for a correlation between the positive things that happen in your life and the amount that you're consuming. 'And then you see that because you want to see that and then it [the drugs] doesn't stop because of anything positive. 'Like if somebody said to me in say 2006 or whatever, if I gave you £5million will you stop doing drugs? I go like, yeah. 'And then I would take drugs and I'd f**k it up because something positive isn't what stops it. It's something negative. That's why they always talk about rock bottom. 'So somebody dies or something dreadful happens and then you have to take stock and go hang on that's my bad. I've got to stop doing that.Speaking to The Sun Online back in 2018, he confessed that one of his lowest moments was waking up in first class on a plane dressed in a microphone fancy dress costume having soiled himself. The Darkness star, 51, famously spent £150k of his estimated £6million fortune on cocaine, living a life of excess which caused him to quit the band in 2006 (pictured in 2004) His addiction became such a source of friction within the group that he went for two years without speaking to his brother Dan - who was also the band's guitarist.In order to get sober, Justin went on to endure a month-long addiction treatment programme at the Priory clinic in Roehampton.Speaking to the Independent, he confessed: 'I became secretive, volatile and verbally abusive, a really unpleasant person to be around.'There were lots of periods I don't even remember; blackouts.'The Darkness called it quits in 2006 after their rock and roll lifestyle took a toll. However, in 2015 they decided to give fame another go, and released a fourth album.Speaking at the time, he told The Daily Mail: 'I had to make a lot of tough decisions when I left the band, but leaving my brother was the hardest.'After a while, though, any awkwardness between us disappeared. We started writing songs together and that laid the foundations for this return...'There are the bands who have a little success before a slow decline. Then there are the ones who ride the roller-coaster, where your mood swings constantly between jubilation and despair. I prefer the rollercoaster.’