No one can break our hearts quite like Lamar Odom.
He’s just been through so much, you know? He’s a good guy fighting a hard battle.
A battle he very nearly lost in October 2015 after he suffered an overdose in a brothel in Nevada.
We all remember what happened after the infamous incident: he was rushed to a hospital, Khloe Kardashian rushed to be at his side.
At one point, reports claimed he’d been declared brain dead, and at another, reports claimed that he was actually dead.
We heard that his organs were shutting down, that Khloe and his family were preparing for the worst, that even if he somehow managed to survive, he’d never be able to walk or talk again.
But Lamar’s had a recovery that’s been nothing short of miraculous — at least when it comes to the way his body bounced back from the brink of death.
Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for his struggle with the disease that put him there in the first place.
Since the overdose, he’s still battling addiction. He’s been spotted at bars, and some friends once allegedly found drug paraphernalia at his home last summer.
It’s hard to tell the rumors from the truth, but we do know for sure that Lamar checked himself into rehab last month as a sort of preventative measure, a way to make sure he stays “on the right path.”
He spent 35 days focusing on his health, and now that he’s out, he’s sharing some really insightful details about his issues.
Insightful, but so, so hard to hear.
In a new interview he did that aired yesterday on The Doctors, he got real about his rehab experience, saying “When I went to treatment before, I was a boy. When I left treatment this time, I left a man.”
“In order to get through this process,” he explains, “I had to tap in on the inside to see who I really was and what I was really made up of.”
“I was able to do that on the inside. It was a spiritual thing for me as well to find my higher power and to become closer to Him.”
He continues “These 30 days that I’ve been here, I’ve learned a lot. First, I’ve learned to be a good selfish — how to take care of myself and put myself first.”
“I did this for me. No one else. You can’t do it for no one else if you want to live a sober life.”
But while he went to rehab for himself, he says that his children “were really happy that I went through the process,” which is obviously a perk.
“I was thinking a lot too much about how they would think of me,” he says, “but once I let down that guard, let them in and let them know everything I was going through, I think it helped build our relationship to tell you the truth.”
“Our relationship before that point, we were struggling.”
Lamar also opened up about life before rehab — like, way before rehab.
“Do I feel ashamed by some of the choices I made?” he asked about life before his overdose.
“Hell yeah. They were despicable. I was basically just committing suicide.”
So sad. But Lamar says that “Being that I know it’s a disease, it allows me to forgive myself a little bit more.”
And just in case all that wasn’t upsetting enough, he also touched on the actual overdose.
“I wasn’t it a good place mentally before the incident happened,” he recalls. “My wife at the time, we were going through some things. And I was in a dark place.”
“It’s crazy because that night,” he says, referring to the night in the brothel, “I didn’t do any coke or anything like that. So I was kinda confused too about how I got like that.”
“I didn’t know until Khloe told me that I was in a coma. I couldn’t even speak at the time. I couldn’t talk. So I was scared.”
About Khloe, he adds that “Honestly, I want my wife back … When you’re doing drugs, you become distant to everything. Even your feelings, you become numb to everything.”
“Just to reinstate what we had as a family, it was important to me. Khloe is important to me. She’s been through all this with me. She stood by my side. I just want to repay her.”
Finally, Lamar says that “The most important thing I took away from rehab is that I’m stronger than I give myself credit for being.”
He sounds great, right? Like he’s really worked through some issues and is ready to be healthy and happy.
And thank goodness for that.
