Travis Barker reveals why he had to quit smoking weed: ‘I miss it, I won’t lie’
Travis Barker reveals why he had to quit smoking weed: ‘I miss it, I won’t lie’
Marina WattsFri, November 13, 2026 at 5:48 PM UTC
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Travis BarkerCredit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via GettyKey Points -
Travis Barker says he stopped smoking weed after his doctor diagnosed him with “precancer of the esophagus.”
The drummer recalled his doctor telling him, “‘This is your warning shot, Trav. Don’t f-- - around. You gotta stop smoking.’”
Barker has been open about being sober, having quit prescription drugs after nearly dying in a 2008 plane crash.
Travis Barker stopped smoking weed after his doctor gave him a harrowing diagnosis.
The Blink-182 drummer shared a health update while chatting about smoking weed and how it negatively impacted him. “I miss it, I won’t lie. I think about it all the time,” he told Kid Cudi on the Nov. 11 episode of Big Bro With Kid Cudi.
Barker mentioned one incident at the recording studio when he was passing a blunt around and someone had demurred, saying they don’t smoke anymore. “And I’m like, ‘What?’ Like, how did you stop? Like I couldn’t figure out how you could quit, you know?”
“I only quit because I got diagnosed with precancer of the esophagus,” Barker continued. “I loved blunts, and I would smoke too much. So that was the only thing.”
Travis Barker performing at 2026 CoachellaCredit: Katie Flores/Billboard via Getty
Barker recalled his doctor telling him, “‘This is your warning shot, Trav. Don’t f-- -- around. You gotta stop smoking.’ Or I would have never stopped. I thought I could be like Willie Nelson and smoke ‘til the day I died.”
“I feel like we’d never hurt anybody. It just wasn’t right for me, you know?” Barker added.
Barker also admitted to previously smoking 10 to 15 blunts a day. “I don’t even know if I was high anymore,” he said. “It was just maintaining, you know?”
The drummer said he didn’t get sober until after he spent six months in the burn center following the September 2008 plane crash in Columbia, S.C., that killed four of the six people on board.
Barker’s assistant Chris “Lil Chris” Baker, his bodyguard Charles “Che” Still, and co-pilots Sarah Lemmon and James Bland died in the crash. Barker and friend Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein survived. Goldstein died less than a year later
“Life hit me, obviously...way bigger than I ever thought it would. That was my time to get sober. I stopped with all the opiates, stopped with all the weed. Under the worst circumstances, but I did get sober,” he told Kid Cudi.
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One healthy habit that Barker has embraced is running, which he picked up when his ex-wife Shanna Moakler was pregnant with his son Landon. He recalled “walking around with jars of blunts” at the time, and having the realization that he was going to be a dad.
“I started running to the freeway and back. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just like, ‘I gotta be healthy. I gotta be a badass dad. I gotta be the best dad I can be.’”
Barker, who is also dad to Alabama, whom he shares with Moakler, and Rocky, whom he shares with wife Kourtney Kardashian.
Besides running, Barker’s workout routine includes boxing and jumping rope, which help him stay sober. “A couple miles a day keep the demons away,” he quipped.
Travis Barker at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in June 2026Credit: Arturo Holmes/Getty
Barker has been open about his journey to sobriety. Earlier this year, he told Zane Lowe on Apple Music about his decision to change his lifestyle. “But my getting sober and my rehab was my plane crash, being in a burn center for six months,” he explained.
“I think I went from doing a lot of drugs recreationally to being in a burn center where they couldn’t even get my medication right because I had recreationally taken painkillers for so long. I struggled. I was awake every surgery. I woke up swinging on doctors that were saving my life. I had no control over it.”
He later added, “So after that experience, when I got out, I never wanted to do drugs again. It was just the last thing I wanted to think about. I couldn’t even take my medication.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
