Tommy Lee of Motley Crue was drinking two gallons of vodka a day

It’s no secret that Mötley Crüe defined the "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" lifestyle. Their 2001 autobiography, The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band, and the subsequent Netflix biopic, laid it all bare, specifically the moment Nikki Sixx famously cheated death.

Two Minutes in the Dark

At the height of his heroin addiction, Sixx overdosed and was clinically dead for two minutes. He was brought back to life by paramedics who, in a scene straight out of a movie (and later, a song), injected two shots of adrenaline directly into his heart. That brush with the afterlife became the high-octane inspiration for the hit "Kickstart My Heart."

Old Habits Die Hard

While the band eventually traded the needles for a slower pace, Tommy Lee found himself falling back into old patterns in 2019. Despite four years of sobriety, the drummer revealed to Yahoo Entertainment that boredom led him back to the bottle.

"I was drinking just out of boredom," Lee admitted. "I would just wake up and be building [a glass with] just all vodka and just a little eyedropper of cranberry or lemonade."

The volume he was consuming was staggering. Lee confessed to drinking two gallons (the big "handles") of vodka every single day.

A Lethal Dose

To put that in perspective for the metric-minded, that’s roughly 7.5 liters of vodka daily. Considering that's more than double the recommended daily intake of water, it's a miracle his body didn't simply shut down.

"I just realized, 'Whoa dude, you’re drinking enough to like, you could probably die,'" Lee recalled.

The Path Back to Sobriety

The wake-up call came largely thanks to his wife, Brittany Furlan. Her genuine fear for his life was the catalyst Tommy needed to seek help.

"She was like, 'Baby, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen anybody drink that much. Like, you’re kind of scaring me,'" Lee said. "Her concern obviously helped in my decision to just get outta here. I bailed for over a month and just was like, 'That’s it, I’m done for a while.'"