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Taylor stated in an interview with Billboard that he was first exposed to heroin by a bandmate, which led to years of addiction to not only it but also codeine, cocaine, alcohol, and experimentation with other substances such as acid (via Rolling Stone).
Taylor plunged headfirst into both of them, forming a band called vThe Flying Machine and falling in with heroin addicts.
While James Taylor successfully kicked his heroin addiction in the early 1970s, he soon became reliant on methadone, a sometimes addictive opiate that's used to help heroin users wean themselves off that harder drug.
James Taylor recalled supplying opiates to John Lennon, though he’s not sure if he was the first, and called himself a “bad influence” on the Beatles.
People know about his marriage to Carly Simon, the Laurel Canyon scene, the songs he inspired Joni Mitchell to write on Blue, the heroin addiction – and Taylor has always considered himself “available” – but family, grief, trauma, makes you even more vulnerable.
An uncle warned James Taylor at a young age that opiate addiction ran in his family, that if he ever touched the powerful sedative drugs "you can just kiss your entire life goodbye." Taylor has told his heroin story many times.
On the afternoon of December 7 1980, James Taylor was accosted by a stranger who knew his name. As the singer-songwriter battled his way home through the footfall of Central Park West, in...
