Peter Doherty has spoken about the “wake-up call” he experienced at the beginning of the year where he came close to losing his feet.
The British musician, 46, is known to fans as the frontman of The Libertines, as well as for his solo career and the band Babyshambles.
However, he also gained notoriety during the Noughties for his hard-partying lifestyle, where he struggled with addiction and several stints in rehab.
Doherty has been clean since the end of 2019, but he confessed in a new interview that his diet of alcohol and cheese while living in France had been exacerbating health issues including type 2 diabetes.
“It was touch and go,” he told The Times of whether or not he would be able to keep his feet, having lost feeling in his extremities. He apparently didn’t notice the sores on his feet until two of his toes went black in January this year.
People with diabetes carry the risk of foot-related complications because high blood sugar levels can damage blood vessels, affecting the flow of blood to feet and legs.
Foot infections and unhealed ulcers are the primary cause of diabetes-related amputations.
“It was a real wake-up call,” Doherty said, confirming that he has since drastically changed his lifestyle: “Now I allow myself a gin and tonic once a week, but I’ve basically not been drinking and have got my blood sugar to a good level, so my toes are healing.”
Smoking doesn’t help, he admitted: “If the inflammation gets bad, you can lose your foot.”
Doherty has been candid about his health issues over the years, claiming in 2023 that he felt “death was lurking” due to the toll that years of drugs and alcohol abuse had on his body.
He told documentary presenter Louis Theroux that he was a “very sick man… I’ve battered it haven’t I, I’ve f***ing caned it.
“The heroin and the crack… I surrendered to that, and then it was the cocaine and the smoking and the alcohol, and now it’s cheese and the saucisson, and the sugar in the tea.”
In another recent interview with Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast, Doherty said he had felt greater pressure to write his first solo album in nine years, Felt Better Alice, because he believed he didn’t have much time left.
“I’d think, ‘I’m dying. I’ve got to write a brilliant song right now... that would happen a lot,” he said, adding: “I’m not that arsed really about writing. I love playing music but that need to write and create, it was fuelled by anxiety and darkness.”
Felt Better Alive is out on 16 May.
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