Johnny Depp Describes Horrifying Pain Of Withdrawing From Opioids

Johnny Depp described the horrifying pain of withdrawing from opioids, saying it was like ‘nothing he’d ever experienced before'.

The Pirates of the Caribbean star continued his testimony today, 20 April, as part of the defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard, which started in Fairfax County Circuit Court last week.

Depp, 58, is seeking $50 million in damages after Heard, 35, claimed she was a victim of ‘sexual violence’ in the Washington Post in 2018, claims which he said have ruined his reputation and career, despite him not being named in the article.

Since first taking the stand on Tuesday, the actor has opened up about a wide range of topics, from the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother to how he got into acting. 

Today he discussed his struggles with opioids, and his subsequent detox from the substance with the help of Dr David Kipper and nurse Debbie Lloyd, who were tasked with providing him a management plan and administering medication to ease the withdrawal symptoms. 

When asked what it’s like to go through a detox from opioids, he said: “The best way to describe it is it feels like the inside of you, the very inside of you, is trying to escape the body. 

“It becomes obviously very physical and so therefore you go into withdrawal… you'd have immense cramps in your stomach, your muscles would seize, my body would shake, the pain is like nothing I've ever experienced before.”

He then went on to provide an example, describing a moment when he’d travelled to his private island in the Bahamas with Lloyd and Heard in 2014 in order to detox. 

“I was sitting on the couch in the little house that we all saw on the island,” he said. “Ms Heard was in the kitchen area and she was chopping vegetables I remember, and I think it was around 2.30 in the afternoon and the effects of the withdrawals were really coming on.

“I said to Ms Heard, 'I'm going to need the meds now,' and she looked at the clock and said, 'It's not time'. I said, ‘No you don't understand, this isn't about clocks and watches and things’... it was visible.”

Depp continued: “I hate saying this and I hate to have to admit this but I believe that was about the lowest point in my life.”

He said that since Heard was ‘adamant’ he couldn’t take the meds then, the only thing he could do at the time was take a scalding hot shower to ease the pain. 

“You stand underneath a scalding shower and essentially you’re burning… from the heat of the water,” he explained. “And what that would do is it would trick the nerves away from the receptors because now they had an immediate problem that needed to be dealt with… so that’s how I was able to bypass those withdrawal symptoms at times.”

If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via [email protected]