Montel Williams Recalls 'Taking 12 to 13' Pills a Day: 'As Celebrities We Can Get Whatever We Want' (Exclusive)
In an exclusive clip, the talk show legend looks back on how easily he got prescription medication to manage his painful multiple sclerosis symptoms
Montel Williams remembers how easy it once was to build a stockpile of opioids when he was on the road.
“As celebrities, we can get whatever we want,” Williams, 68, tells Maria Menounos on the Dec. 17 episode of her podcast, Heal Squad.
Williams shared that while he was traveling around the country to promote The Montel Williams Show, which he hosted from 1991 to 2008, all he had to do was call the hotel concierge to get access to a doctor. Williams would “name the set” of prescriptions he wanted to manage symptoms from multiple sclerosis, with which he was diagnosed in 1999.
Related: 9 Celebrities Who Have Multiple Sclerosis - and What They've Said About Their Experience
“Back then we didn't have oxycodone, we had things like Talwin, we had things like morphine,” he said. “I found I could call the hotel doctor and get a 10-day prescription of any drug I wanted and they would just happily give it to me.”
“So I started stocking up. There was one point in time when I was taking about 12 to 13” pills a day, says Williams, who declined to name which specific drug he took, explaining, “some of this medication does have a purpose.”
“I don't believe any of the opioids have a purpose for long-term use. They're only a short-term use thing. That's what they should be. That's what they were invented for. That's what they were created for,” Williams said. “However, I was at the point where, the more you take, the less it works.”
Williams tells Menounos that his primary doctor called him and said, “ 'Dude, you're done. I'm not writing you any more of these.' ” It was then that Williams’ doctor threatened to get the federal Drug Enforcement Agency involved.
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Montel Williams on the set of his talk show in 1993.Related: Montel Williams Is 'Blessed to Be Alive' After Life-Threatening Cerebellar Hemorrhagic Stroke
“ ‘I'm literally gonna send a message off to the DEA and tell them that you are doctor hunting,’ “ Williams recalls his doctor saying. “ 'I'm gonna put you on the national register, you shouldn't get prescribed these drugs.’ “
Williams shared that this is when his doctor recommended medical marijuana for his MS-induced pain, telling him, “ ‘If you want relief. I've heard from some other patients like you that this marijuana thing seems to work … You're smart guy. Look it up, figure it out.”
“And I did just that,” said Williams, who is now an advocate for medical marijuana for pain relief, and hemp-based products in general.
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