Prescription pill addiction isn’t a new wave globally, but it has been impacting the younger generation of hip hop artists in ways that may be unfamiliar to the genre. We’ve witnessed artists like Mac Miller, Lil Peep, and allegedly Juice WRLD lose their lives to overdoses, and while some of their fellow artists have pledged to quit many of their bad habits, others still struggle with addiction.
In a rare move, the ever-private Wifisfuneral finally sat down for an interview with VladTV. The 22-year-old Bronx native, real name Isaiah Rivera, battled addictions to cocaine, Adderall, and Xanax, and he shared in his chat with Vlad that he almost lost his life on multiple occasions. Rivera stated that cocaine and Adderall were the worst because “I was really mixing the two because I was like, ‘F*ck this, I don’t wanna be here.'”
During his second overdose, Rivera revealed that he had a stroke. “Whole left side of my body was like, done. Stiffed up. I couldn’t move” he said. “I was blessed that [I wasn’t paralyzed] but I definitely felt locked. Face stiff. This whole left side of my body was literally completely stiff. I couldn’t move it. I was freaking out so bad, I was wobbling. I could only move on my right leg.”
During this frightening episode, Rivera said his friend who was with him “got so paranoid that he damn-near broke my knee-cap because he tried to pop my knee back into place and cut the blood circulation and at least hold my sh*t until I went to the hospital.” While he’s lucky to be alive, Rivera said that he “still feels the effects” of the stroke because he has to “drag myself when I walk.”
As scary as that was,it wasn’t his last overdose. He shared the story of one that occurred during the Boy Who Cried Wolf Tour. That time, he took his ex-girlfriend’s codeine pills and ingested so many that his face went numb. The overdoses weren’t warning to him, at the time, that he should reevaluate his habits because all he could think about was how terrible he felt about his life. Watch his clip below.