The latest episode of Justin Bieber's ongoing YouTube docuseries Seasons sees the Changes artist reflecting on a period in his life in which he began "valuing the wrong things," ultimately leading to substance abuse issues.
"There was a time where I was sipping lean, I was popping pills, I was doing molly," Bieber recalled in the latest episode. "You know, uh, shrooms, everything. It was just an escape for me. I was just young like everybody in the industry and people in the world who experiment and do, you know, just normal growing up things."
The difference, as Bieber explained, was that he went through all of this under the microscopic watch of the world and was ill-equipped for the repercussions.
"I had a different level of exposure and people and I had a lot of money and a lot of things," he said. "So then you have all these people around me just kinda hanging on, wanting stuff from me, knowing that I was living this lifestyle that they also wanted to live."
Hailey Bieber also pointed to her husband's undiagnosed "horrible, crazy, crippling anxiety" and said that he was unknowingly self-medicating at the time.
"With all the success that we've had, we've also had some really turbulent times," manager Scooter Braun added.
Delving further into how bad things got for him before he decided to revise his lifestyle, Bieber said he had reached a point where his security staff had been tasked with checking him on a nightly basis.
"I decided to stop because I felt like I was, like, bro, I was, like, dying," he said. "My security and stuff were coming into the room at night to check my pulse. Like, people don't know how serious it got, like it was legit crazy [and] scary."
Ultimately, he was thankfully able to get through this tribulation and see the other side. Up top, see Justin and Hailey Bieber discuss this journey in greater detail on the fifth episode of Seasons, titled "The Dark Season."
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, help is available.
