Lisa Marie Presley suffered ‘big league withdrawals’ from opioid addiction after the birth of her twins in 2008 saw her spiral into substance abuse, her posthumous memoir has revealed.
Presley died aged 54 on January 12 2023 from a small bowel obstruction caused by previous weight-loss surgery – with opioids found in her blood at the time of her death.
The star had been open about her descent into addiction – reflecting on her struggles to stay clean in taped recordings and notes compiled and co-authored by her daughter Riley Keough, 35 for new book From Here To the Great Unknown.
In an excerpt obtained by People Presley writes: ‘For a couple of years it was recreational and then it wasn’t. It was an absolute matter of addiction, withdrawal in the big leagues.’
She previously wrote about how her addiction to painkillers and opioids had started in the foreword for 2019 Harry Nelson book, The United States of Opioids: A Prescription for Liberating a Nation in Pain.
Lisa Marie Presley suffered ‘big league withdrawals’ from opioid addiction after the birth of her twins in 2008 saw her spiral into substance abuse, her posthumous memoir has revealed – pictured two days before her death on January 10 2023
The star is pictured with twins Harper and Finley, 14, in 2022 – she shared the girls with ex-husband Michael Lockwood
Presley wrote: ‘You may read this and wonder how, after losing people close to me, I also fell prey to opioids. I was recovering after the birth of my daughters, Vivienne and Finley, when a doctor prescribed me opioids for pain. It only took a short-term prescription of opioids in the hospital for me to feel the need to keep taking them.
She added: “Even in recent years, I have seen too many people I loved struggle with addiction and die tragically from this epidemic. It is time for us to say goodbye to shame about addiction. We have to stop blaming and judging ourselves and the people around us … That starts with sharing our stories … As I write this, I think of my four children, who gave me the purpose to heal.
Riley told the publication her mother’s ‘descent into addiction’ was ‘incredibly difficult’ to write about, saying: ‘I hope that in an extraordinary circumstance, people relate to a very human experience of love, heartbreak, loss, addiction and family.
‘[My mom] wanted to write a book in the hopes that someone could read her story and relate to her, to know that they’re not alone in the world. Her hope with this book was just human connection. So that’s mine.’
This comes after Riley – who is the daughter of Lisa Marie and Danny Keough – revealed what she thinks is her mother’s true cause of death
Keough told People her mother really died from a broken heart, after her brother brother Benjamin died by suicide at just 27 in 2020.
‘My mom tried her best to find strength for me and my younger sisters after Ben died, but we knew how much pain she was in,’ the 35-year-old Keough said.
‘My mom physically died from the after effects of her surgery, but we all knew she died of a broken heart,’ she said.
In an excerpt obtained by People Presley writes: ‘For a couple of years it was recreational and then it wasn’t. It was an absolute matter of addiction, withdrawal in the big leagues – Presley is pictured with mom Priscilla while pregnant in March 2008
Riley told the publication her mother’s ‘descent into addiction’ was ‘incredibly difficult’ to write about
Lisa Marie admitted in 2022 that she would never ‘move on’ from her son’s death, with Riley revealing in her memoir – set that for release on October 8 – that Lisa Marie and her started to move on by helping others.
‘One kid wrote to Riley and said, ‘I didn’t kill myself last night because of what you said it would do to my family and those that are left behind. So thank you.’ That helped me. That brought me up,’ Lisa Marie wrote in the memoir.
Riley added that the 2016 Nick Cave documentary One More Time With Feeling also helped immensely, calling it, ‘a really beautiful portrayal of grief.’
Riley had promised to Lisa Marie that she would help write the memoir, but after her mom died in January 2023, she listed to taped recordings of her mother.
She admitted it her brother’s death, ‘was incredibly difficult to write about, as was my mom’s descent into addiction. And her own death, of course.’
Benjamin Keough shot himself in his family’s mansion in July 2020 at the age of 27 after an argument with his girlfriend.
An autopsy report revealed he had cocaine and alcohol in his system at the time.
Riley recently announced the memoir From Here to the Great Unknown that she wrote with her mother before her passing and has been on a press tour promoting the project which debuts October 8
Benjamin Keough shot himself in his family’s mansion in July 2020 at the age of 27 after an argument with his girlfriend; he is pictured with mother Lisa Marie in 2012
He had tried to take his life six months earlier, then spent three weeks in rehab four months before he died. Keough had attempted rehab three times before but never completed it.
Presley abused drugs from the age of 13-17, until her mother checked her into a Scientology rehab center.
By 2013, she was heavily abusing cocaine , and checked into rehab at least five times.
She was believed to have been sober in recent years, but following her son’s death her ex-husband Michael Lockwood said he feared she could relapse.
The daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley was just nine when her father died aged 42 of a heart attack, thought to have possibly been brought on by his addiction to prescription barbiturates.
The scale of her problem was laid bare amid her bruising 2016 divorce from Lockwood, after a decade of marriage.
In a 2017 deposition, which was obtained by the Radar Online, she admitted to abusing cocaine, opioids, painkillers and alcohol.
‘The last three years I … had to go to rehab several times,’ she said, later putting the exact number at somewhere between three and five stints in a Mexican treatment facility.
‘I was a mess. I couldn’t stop.’
Lisa Marie said that her addiction peaked as their marriage ended in 2016.
‘The last year of our marriage, I was abusing cocaine terribly,’ she said, according to the court documents.
Asked if her drug use was heavy, she said: ‘It was bad, yeah.’
