Jada Pinkett Smith has been using her Facebook series, Red Table Talk, as a platform for others to spread awareness of what people go through but do not speak upon. On the last episode, Smith invited R&B singer, August Alsina onto the show to discuss his addiction problem alongside Adrienne Banfield Norris (Pinkett Smith’s mom) and Ashley Marie (Will Smith’s little sister).
Norris has been victoriously fighting a 20-year long heroin addiction battle. She has stayed clean for 27 years and counting. Marie tried to state that marijuana is not addictive while Alsina admitted his pill problem. Back in 2014, Alsina passed out and fell off a stage during a tour stop in New York. The hospital prescribed him Percocets for the pain he was enduring which eventually spiraled into abuse of the painkiller.
Smith opened up the conversation by recalling a time Alsina shared his story with her, “I remember you telling me, ‘I do six Percs a day, [but] my buddies do 20.’ That was an eye opener for me. And he said he’s not addicted.”
Alsina explained how he was raised to believe addiction looked differently,
“My step-father was addicted to crack, my father was addicted to crack and alcohol, so my introduction to drugs was that. And seeing my step father pawn the whole house for some drugs, pawn the car, whatever, and my idea of an addiction was that. I would see him sweating, shaking, and really having to get his life back, and I went through that experience thinking I had it under control.”
Jada went onto explain the phone conversation she had with the singer where she broke down in tears. It was from there that Alsina realized he did indeed have a problem. He then was spotted spending a lot of time with the Smith family after they all met in 2015 in London.
“He asked me that day, ‘Man I could really use some help dealing with life.’ August and I and my mother and the family as a whole has been on this journey with August towards his healing.”
Watch the full interview here.
