Before his untimely death by suicide in 2017, Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington dealt with an “hour-by-hour battle with addiction” to alcohol for months.
Author Jason Lipshutz details the artist’s dark moments as well as the rise of the famous rock band in “It Starts With One: The Legend and Legacy of Linkin Park.”
“In his final months, however, while publicly discussing his general difficulties with life during the One More Light press run, he was privately telling loved ones about a specific problem: the urge to drink had consumed his thoughts once again,” an excerpt from the book reads, per People.
The passage continues: “‘He was describing an hour-by-hour battle with addiction,’ said Ryan Shuck, Chester’s close friend who had helped turn one of his bleakest periods during the 2000s into the lone Dead by Sunrise album and who had been texting with him about his alcoholism in the weeks leading up to his death.”
“When an autopsy and toxicology report later confirmed that Chester had a trace amount of alcohol in his system at the time of his death — he had been discovered with an empty bottle of Stella Artois in the room as well as a glass of Corona that was less than half full — Talinda was not surprised.”
“She had immediately understood that those beer bottles represented a relapse. I knew instantly that that drink triggered that shame,’ she said, ‘triggered a lifetime of unhealthy neural pathways.’”
Bennington was 41 when he died on July 20, 2017.
“Our hearts are broken. The shockwaves of grief and denial are still sweeping through our family as we come to grips with what has happened,” said his bandmates in a statement days after their frontman’s death.
“We’re trying to remind ourselves that the demons who took you away from us were always part of the deal. After all, it was the way you sang about those demons that made everyone fall in love with you in the first place.”
Months later, Linkin Park held a tribute concert in October before they largely fell out of the public eye.
The band has since returned to performing, adding Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara as co-vocalist and Colin Brittain as drummer earlier this month.
They join bandmates Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Phoenix and Joe Hahn.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
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