Eddie Van Halen

The late Eddie Van Halen, like Stevie Nicks, was prescribed Klonopin by a doctor when seeking treatment for an addiction. The prescription ended up harming him. A 2012 Esquire interview covers the story:

But this time he went to stop drinking once and for all. The doctors put him on a horrible drug called Klonopin. Then while onstage, he took a nosedive and had to go to rehab to get off the Klonopin, and they put him on antidepressants. Ed’s system was in such shock that he became catatonic for about a year and spent most of 2008 watching television.

Eddie recounts this part of his life:

All I wanted to do was stop drinking. But instead I literally could not communicate. Yeah, I was gone. I don’t know what dimension I went to, but I was not here.

It was such a long process to come out of this. Just to be able to communicate, to talk, was a feat in itself. You know when you see homeless people and they’re literally not here, you know? I laid on the couch for a year. Just watching Law & Order. I was always in the studio making music, and now, nothing.

And slowly I came out of it, and the first thing I remember, really, was picking up a guitar, and my whole hand was locked into a fist. And I thought, “Okay, I guess I won’t be playing anymore.