Erin Simon
[When we grow up we think we know more than our parents, but when was that moment when you realized, dang my parents were right]

Royce da 5'9"
It's hard to put a finger on it. You know because, like I said, I felt like my dad knew everything. I distinctly remember in my early twenties really feeling like I should not be doing this, but you know like they say curiosity kills, it's the curiosity that kills. Sometimes you know its not right and you know if everybody else is doing it, it's just kind like that thing. I kind of fell into that and I always as a youngin' being accepted was always a big thing for me.

Like I really wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be normal, I wanted to be...my big brother was crazy. He didn't have a lot of friends, he rebelled against everyone so, I didn't want to be like that. I wanted to have friends, I wanted to be normal. So, it was like a few things that I did in my early twenties, I did it just because I felt like I was a part of it, like drinking.

Like I started drinking when I was 21, first drink was with Dr. Dre and Eminem.

Brandon killabh Hall
[Yeah I get that, because you came in at 19. So, being surrounded with Eminem and Dre, you probably had all of these types of pressures. Is that what kinda let to the drinking?]

Royce da 5'9"
I mean I was born an addict. So, when I started to drink it just clicked in. "Ohh got something else to be addicted to. Because I think my first addicition was hot sauce. My first addiction was hot sauce. My mom put hot sauce on my thumb because I was a thumb sucker when I was a kid. I guess that was supposed to stop me from sucking my thumb but it just made me love hot sauce.

Erin Simon
[When it came to your previous (alcohol) addiction and circumstances, do you feel like those moments were driven by your need to fit in]

Royce da 5'9"
Yeah, I think that was the mindframe I was in when I started drinking. Went through all of my teenage years, like all of my friends were drinking, but I was so big into sports, I just looked down on it. And the my big brother, he used to come into the crib, he gave me a bad feeling about alcohol.

Because he was drinking like back when n***as were drink Olde English 800 and shit. Like the bad drunks, real bad beer drunk, he used to come in like that. He used to come in the crib and I would be like why does he keep coming in here so drunks because he knew my dad was going to trip. I used to think to myself, nah I don't want to look like that. I just get hoopin', you know what I'm saying, and once I got into the business, I traded my previous life of being an athlete in to be an artist.

I was around Dre and all of them and it was just like a comfort zone for me. Being around those kind of people who were working on that level and it wasn't like 'Yo, man you need to be drinking,' I don't ever want to paint that kind of picture about them. It was just around, it was just available and it was like you know what man let me try, let me take a drink, you know what I'm saying. I'm in such a great mood now, got Eminem to the right of me, Dre to the left, and I started drinking.
And it was like a progressional thing from there. It took a while for me to really like it, and once I started liking it was on from there.

Brandon killabh Hall
[How long does that make for you? (sobriety)]

Royce da 5'9"
Five (years)