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Lisa Marie Presley detailed her struggles with opioid addiction in her forthcoming memoir, expected to be published next month more than a year after her death at age 54.
Titled From Here to the Great Unknown, Presley’s posthumous memoir was completed by her eldest daughter, Riley Keough. Keough took over for her mother after she died in January 2023 from a bowel obstruction resulting from weight-loss surgery she underwent years before.
In an excerpt of the memoir shared with People, the singer and only child of Elvis Presley recalled becoming addicted to prescription painkillers following the birth of her now-15-year-old twins Finley Aaron Love and Vivienne Harper Anne.
Presley welcomed her youngest daughters with ex Michael Lockwood in 2008. She shared Keough, 32, and late son Benjamin with her ex-husband, actor and musician Danny Keough. Benjamin died by suicide in 2020 at age 27.
“For a couple of years it was recreational and then it wasn’t,” Presley wrote of her drug abuse. “It was an absolute matter of addiction, withdrawal in the big leagues.
“You may read this and wonder how, after losing people close to me, I also fell prey to opioids,” she continued. “I was recovering after the birth of my daughters, Vivienne and Finley, when a doctor prescribed me opioids for pain. It only took a short-term prescription of opioids in the hospital for me to feel the need to keep taking them.”
Presley’s father, the King of Rock’n’Roll, famously died in 1977 from a heart attack caused by a combination of drugs. Years later, her ex-husband Michael Jackson died from a lethal mixture of sedatives and propofol, an anesthetic.
The “Lights Out” singer was public about her road to sobriety, writing about her addiction to opioids in a foreword for Harry Nelson’s 2019 book The United States of Opioids.
Of her mother’s memoir, Keough said in January: “Few people had the opportunity to know who my mom really was, other than being Elvis’s daughter.
“I was lucky to have had that opportunity and working on preparing her autobiography for publication has been a privilege, albeit a bittersweet one,” the Daisy Jones & The Six alum said. “I’m so excited to share my mom now, at her most vulnerable and most honest, and in doing so, I do hope that readers come to love my mom as much as I did.”
From Here to the Great Unknown is scheduled to be published on October 15.
If you or someone you know is suffering from drug addiction, you can seek confidential help and support 24-7 from Frank, by calling 0300 123 6600, texting 82111, sending an email or visiting their website here.
In the US, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration can be reached at 1-800-662-HELP.
