American rapper and record producer Eminem, best known for his rhymes about drug addiction, daughter, and childhood in Detroit, opened up in an exclusive interview about his fight back to sobriety and health. His decades-long drug habit and the weight gain he experienced because of it ended in 2007 when he overdosed on pills and ended up in the hospital. After rehab, Eminem struggled for a year with his unhealthy weight, finding an exercise regimen that worked for him while fighting his cyclical prescription pill addiction.

“I was close to 230 pounds,” Eminem recalls in his interview with Men’s Journal. “I'm not sure how I got so big, but I have ideas. The coating on the Vicodin and the Valium I'd been taking for years leaves a hole in your stomach, so to avoid a stomachache, I was constantly eating — and eating badly.”

Exercise ultimately helped him successfully transition out of his drug habit. Physical activity has been proven to be very beneficial when treating patients with chemical dependence, according to addiction treatment center Bradford Health Services. It reduces stress, focuses physical and emotional energy, naturally alters the brain’s chemistry in a positive direction, has been called “meditation in motion,” and improves optimism during recovering while curbing any depression or anxiety during the process. But there’s a reason why exercise and addicts go hand in hand.

“When I got out of rehab, I needed to lose weight, but I also needed to figure out a way to function sober,” Eminem said. “Unless I was blitzed out of my mind, I had trouble sleeping. So I started running. It gave me a natural endorphin high, but it also helped me sleep, so it was perfect. It's easy to understand how people replace addiction with exercise.”

Most people start working out with the best intentions to look better, feel better, be healthier, and in Eminem’s case, also stay sober. However, as Eminem explains, his running quickly turned into an addition, trading out his pills for a treadmill. He ran down to 149 pounds, burning 2,000 calories every day. He eventually went too far and started to get injured, which led him to incorporate moderate running into weight lifting. For constructive direction, he turned to workout DVDs like Shaun T’s Insanity workout, P90X, and most recently found success with the Beast Body workout.

“I know a lot of these DVD guys are wacky,” Eminem said, “but I'm alone in my gym. I need someone on the TV yelling to motivate me. Besides, some of this sh-- is entertaining. ”