Guns N' Roses Drummer Steven Adler's Chaotic Path To Quitting Heroin: A Kidnapping Story

Steven Adler is renowned among fans of hard rock, who listened to the band Guns N' Roses right from when they released their debut album "Appetite for Destruction" in 1987.

The project reached number one on the Billboard 200 a year after its release, in which Steven played a crucial part as the band's drummer.

However, with the fame came an intense indulgence in taking heroin, followed by several rehabilitation stints, which never worked until Steven's brother Jamie Adler decided to take matters into his own hands.

Keep on reading to learn more.

In a three-part story series by Yahoo, Jamie Adler, the brother of Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler, detailed how he helped bring his brother back from addiction.

By 1990, Steven was out of Guns N' Roses, fired because the band could no longer cope with his addiction. The following years saw the then-embattled drummer float in and out of rehab.

Meanwhile, Jamie had become a music agent, a career he had pursued to help bring back his brother - whom he loved dearly - into the limelight. However, despite the opportunities he got Steven's way, it all went to waste as he was always self-destructing.

A call in March 2007 from their mother, Deanna that revealed Steven was in horrible shape due to his addiction pushed Jamie to the wall. At the time, doctors said Steven needed to take several medications to cleanse his blood, or else he would die.

Knowing that his brother couldn't be trusted, Jamie hatched a plan to kidnap him, breaking several laws.

"I said, 'F*** it. We're going to go and kidnap this dude,'" Jamie recalled.

After arranging with some associates, Steven was kidnapped from the hospital. This was quickly done by drugging his milkshake with enough Valium and Xanax, which knocked out Steven so long that they were already at the location where they planned to keep him.

"I'm committing so many f**king felonies at this point," Jamie recalled, per Yahoo.

But he was all in already, and there was no going back. So each day, for over a month, he ensured that his brother got his medication.

It wasn't an easy ride as Steven put up all forms of resistance, including an attempt to sneak crack hidden in a microphone into the location and, on some days, refusing to take his drugs until he was physically restrained.

Apart from giving him his medication, Jamie also brought close associates to talk to Steven, such as late L.A. rap legend Nipsey Hussle, with hopes they would get through to him.

The attempt to set Steven straight was seemingly futile. Immediately after his release, he returned to heroin, making good on his threat to his brother during the confinement to relapse regardless of how long he was held.

Perhaps, due to the seriousness of the kidnap - one would never know, Steven contacted Dr. Drew Pinksy a few months later to help him clean up his act.

Pinksy was one of those who counseled Steven while he was abducted. Together they slowly began the drummer's road to recovery, including several relapses and even one arrest.

In time, Steven was no longer a junkie. He formed his band Adler's Appetite in 2011, got inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame, and made a comeback with Guns N' Roses in 2016.

However, Jamie paid a high cost for his actions; their brotherly bond was broken beyond repair, which he acknowledged in the interview with Yahoo: "It was so bad that to this day, we still don't have a relationship."

Although he believes the abduction was for a good reason, Jamie isn't shocked that his elder brother is still profoundly resentful.

"I held a guy hostage and made him kick drugs against his own will and subjected him to complete terror for over a month," Jamie said mournfully.

Still, he is optimistic that his brother would one day let bygones be bygones after they had an emotional moment in May 2017, where Steven seemingly "validated" Jamie's actions as the right thing to do due to the then-circumstance.

In the meantime, Jamie, who is married with three kids, is living life for himself, a decision he took after realizing that he had focused on his brother all his life.

"My entire life, I never lived for me," he remarked. "I always lived for my brother. My brother was my drug. It was time to start living for me."