In a 2015 interview with Complex, the "Same Love" rapper admitted he stopped going to his 12-step meetings because he was "burnt out" and "stressed," while he was trying to deal with his newfound fame, and all the pressure that comes along with it.
He admitted to hiding his backslide, and even hiding sleeping pills in his shoes. He also called himself "sneaky" and "deceitful."
"I'm rolling around like a 15-year-old trying not to get caught smoking weed in my car," he said, "Straight up, driving all around here, like I was 15 years ago. Same s---. I felt so dumb. I felt like I'm just wasting time. What am I escaping here?"
Macklemore decided to truly commit to recovery again once he found out his girlfriend was pregnant with their first child, saying, "Since I heard that Tricia was pregnant, I was like, I need to grow up right now."
In April 2021, the rapper told Dax Shepard that, like Shepard, he had relapsed in 2020. He said that he had listened to the episode where Shepard detailed his relapse, and it made him cry — and feel less alone.
"It was within two months of my COVID relapse, and the disease of addiction is crazy," he said. "It made me feel, as someone that had relapsed again, like a month or two before, that I'm not alone," he added.
Macklemore also said that speaking about it "lets other people feel that they're not alone."