Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino might be celebrating his eighth ‘Soberversary’ on December 25, but there was a time when his attorneys once informed him he’d spent an estimated $500K on cocaine and oxycodone.
‘I was like, “Man, that definitely sounds about right,” because it was true,’ the 41-year-old Jersey Shore star recalled to ET on Monday.
‘When you think of that number, when you hear that number, that’s a good college fund right there. I gotta just be accountable and be like, “Yeah, that happened.” I was wild. I was careless. I was reckless, and I fell prey to drug addiction.’
Mike recounts his long journey to sobriety in Reality Check, the 296-page memoir he co-authored with Andy Symonds that hits shelves on December 19.
The fame and fortune that came with starring in a hit MTV reality show between 2009-2012 was like pouring ‘gasoline on fire’ for Sorrentino’s inner demons and he had a ‘problem turning off the excess button.’
Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino might be celebrating his eighth ‘Soberversary’ on December 25, but there was a time when his attorneys once informed him he’d spent an estimated $500K on cocaine and oxycodone (pictured Monday)
The 41-year-old Jersey Shore star recalled to ET on Monday: ‘When you hear that number, that’s a good college fund right there. I gotta just be accountable and be like, “Yeah, that happened.” I was wild. I was careless. I was reckless, and I fell prey to drug addiction’ (pictured in 2022)
‘I was into everything. I had everything on me at all times in my Louis Vuitton bag,’ the Staten Islander said.
‘Everything – from a couple hundred Roxicet, which are 30mg oxycodone, then I’d have probably 150 Percocets on me, which are 10mg oxycodone. Then I would have about 100 Xanax on me, 100 Valium, and if I wasn’t traveling on a plane maybe I would have some weed and cocaine as well.’
Mike now admits of competing on the 11th season of Dancing With the Stars in 2010: ‘I was always high.’
Sorrentino and his pro-partner Karina Smirnoff were eliminated in the fourth week of the ABC celebrity dancing competition and Dirty Dancing alum Jennifer Grey went on to win the Mirrorball Trophy.
Several months later, the Brotrition co-founder and his Jersey Shore castmates flew to Florence, Italy to film the fourth season and he successfully smuggled ‘a couple hundred Roxys in a shoe, in an Altoids case that I disassembled.’
‘Once the [TSA security] got to the bag in question, I would say, “Oh, I need to put those shoes on.” So, I took them out of the equation,’ Mike said of the nerve-wracking airport incident.
Sorrentino was taking six painkillers per day, and when he ran out he wound up headbutting a wall during a screaming argument with castmate Ronnie Ortiz-Magro in a 2011 episode titled ‘And the Wall Won.’
‘You guys saw in Italy when I ran my head into a wall,’ The Buckhead Shore host noted.
Hitting shelves on December 19! Mike recounts his long journey to sobriety in Reality Check, the 296-page memoir he co-authored with Andy Symonds
Hey-day: The fame and fortune that came with starring in a hit MTV reality show between 2009-2012 was like pouring ‘gasoline on fire’ for Sorrentino’s inner demons and he had a ‘problem turning off the excess button’ (pictured in 2009)
The Staten Islander said: ‘I was into everything. I had everything on me at all times in my Louis Vuitton bag. Everything – from a couple hundred Roxicet, which are 30mg oxycodone, then I’d have probably 150 Percocets on me, which are 10mg oxycodone. Then I would have about 100 Xanax on me, 100 Valium, and if I wasn’t traveling on a plane maybe I would have some weed and cocaine as well’
Mike now admits of competing on the 11th season of Dancing With the Stars in 2010: ‘I was always high’
Self-medicating on set: Sorrentino and his pro-partner Karina Smirnoff (2-R) were eliminated in the fourth week of the ABC celebrity dancing competition and Dirty Dancing alum Jennifer Grey went on to win the Mirrorball Trophy
Drug smuggling: Several months later, the Brotrition co-founder and his Jersey Shore castmates flew to Florence, Italy to film the fourth season and he successfully smuggled ‘a couple hundred Roxys in a shoe, in an Altoids case that I disassembled’
![Mike said of the nerve-wracking airport incident: 'Once the [TSA security] got to the bag in question, I would say, "Oh, I need to put those shoes on." So, I took them out of the equation'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/11/28/01/78303643-12798113-image-m-32_1701135326739.jpg "Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino admits to spending $500,000 on cocaine and oxycodone, and smuggling 200 pills to Italy during Jersey Shore filming 17")
Mike said of the nerve-wracking airport incident: ‘Once the [TSA security] got to the bag in question, I would say, “Oh, I need to put those shoes on.” So, I took them out of the equation’
‘And the Wall Won’: Sorrentino was taking six painkillers per day, and when he ran out he wound up headbutting a wall during a screaming argument with castmate Ronnie Ortiz-Magro in a 2011 episode
The Buckhead Shore host noted: ‘I was going through withdrawals at the time because I had ran out of pills’
‘I had given up on myself’: Mike was treated for his addiction to prescription meds at Utah rehab Cirque Lodge (pictured in 2008) in 2012, and he completed a second rehab stint in 2015 after snorting heroin and hitting rock bottom
Ex-convict: Sorrentino also neglected to pay $8.9M in taxes, which led to an eight-month sentence at Otisville Federal Correctional Institution until he was released in 2019
Thanksgiving family portrait: The flat Earther credits his college sweetheart-turned-wife Lauren Pesce Sorrentino (R) and their two children – son Romeo Reign, 2; and daughter Mia Bella, 10 months – for helping him stay sober and on the right path
Still going strong! The Sorrentinos – who split for a decade in 2007 – will welcome their third child (a daughter) next March, and they celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary on November 1
Ready for more? Fans can catch more of The Situation in the first part of the sixth season reunion for Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, which airs this Thursday on MTV
‘I was going through withdrawals at the time because I had ran out of pills.’
Mike was treated for his addiction to prescription meds at Utah rehab Cirque Lodge in 2012, and he completed a second rehab stint in 2015 after snorting heroin and hitting rock bottom.
‘I was desperate and I was in that hole. I was depressed and [with] anxiety and self-doubt. I had given up on myself,’ Sorrentino recalled.
‘I got to the point in my life I couldn’t hide it anymore. I got to the point where I needed to do something different, and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Once I started to become sober, I really just turned everything over and was doing everything differently.’
The flat Earther also neglected to pay $8.9M in taxes, which led to an eight-month sentence at Otisville Federal Correctional Institution until he was released in 2019.
Mike credits his college sweetheart-turned-wife Lauren Pesce Sorrentino and their two children – son Romeo Reign, 2; and daughter Mia Bella, 10 months – for helping him stay sober and on the right path.
The Sorrentinos – who split for a decade in 2007 – will welcome their third child (a daughter) next March, and they celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary on November 1.
Fans can catch more of The Situation in the first part of the sixth season reunion for Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, which airs this Thursday on MTV.
