9/29/2008

Heroin is a drug that drug addicts are terrified of. Quite simply, when a person starts using heroin, the odds of that person stopping are much less than 50-50.  
  
Because of this, the news that broke today that Russell Brand took heroin every day for 11 years is quite shocking.  
  
As the 11 years wound down, Brand was told that he would die if he didn't stop. This was the biggest factor in persuading the comedian (who recently hosted the VMAs) to stop using heroin, not the jail time that he was facing if he continued using, because of the super-intense addiction that heroin has.  
  
"The first time I took heroin, I took heroin every day until I stopped 11 years later," Brand says. "They said, 'If you don't stop taking drugs now you'll be dead, in a mental asylum, or in prison within six months.'"  
  
Brand went on to quit drugs in 2003, and starred in *Forgetting Sarah Marshall* this year and hosted the 2008 Video Music Awards.