By Mark Gray
8:00pm PST, Nov 29, 2023
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Mike Sorrentino found himself in a pretty terrible situation during his "Jersey Shore" heyday. In a new chat with "Entertainment Tonight," the reality TV star opened up about his drug dependency from 2009 to 2012. With a new memoir set to be released on Dec. 19, the MTV star said his life completely revolved around how to score his next fix.
"I did spend about half a million dollars on cocaine and oxycodone," he said. "I was wild. I was careless. I was reckless, and I fell prey to drug addiction."
Keep clicking for more on The Situation's low points, then find out how he was able to smuggle drugs past "Jersey Shore" producers…
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For several years during his early days in the spotlight, Mike Sorrentino was never far from drugs.
"I was into everything. I had everything on me at all times in my Louis Vuitton bag. Everything," he told "Entertainment Tonight."
Mike traveled on airplanes with Xanax and Valium, he said. When he wasn't airborne, he had cocaine and marijuana at his disposal.
"My life was going by so quickly that, at the time, I made a mistake and I thought it was going to help my performance or my stamina, and for a little bit, I have to say, that it did," he said. "But eventually I became dependent and I became addicted on these substances."
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Although Mike Sorrentino was already addicted to drugs before "Jersey Shore," fame and excess cash made things worse. Figuring out ways to "smuggle" drugs from the production crew "consumed all [his] time."
He often hid drugs in a certain shoe which he "disguised" in a suitcase. Thinking back to an infamous moment on the MTV reality show when he slammed his head into a wall, he admits, "I was going through withdrawals at the time cause I had ran out of pills."
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Mike Sorrentino's troubles weren't limited to drugs. In 2019, he spent eight months behind bars in a New York federal prison for tax evasion. The "Jersey Shore" star and his brother, Marc Sorrentino, were indicted twice: first in 2014 and then again in 2017 for conspiring to defraud the United States government by failing to pay taxes on their income.
Still, prison wasn't his lowest point…
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Mike Sorrentino's lowest point came three years after "Jersey Shore" wrapped: He tried heroin while feeling overwhelmed with depression and anxiety.
"I ended up trying a drug that I never thought I would try. A drug that kills most people. A drug that most people don't come back from. A drug that I told myself that I would never do, that I thought was dirty. It was heroin," he said.
Shortly after, Mike went to rehab. He's been sober since 2015.
