Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino concealed his addiction problems from producers (Picture: Getty Images)
Jersey Shore’s Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino has opened up about the extreme lengths he went to in order to sustain his drug addiction.
The MTV star, 41, was told by his lawyers he had spent $500,000 (£393,900) on cocaine and prescription drug oxycodone, taken to manage severe pain, during the peak of his substance abuse problems.
He would also regularly smuggle drugs and medicine across borders, developing a technique in which he would pack dozens of pairs of shoes, some concealing the pills, to dissuade police from conducting thorough checks.
Mike explained: ‘I was into everything. I had everything on me at all times in my Louis Vuitton bag. Everything – from a couple hundred Roxicet, which are 30 milligrams of oxycodone, then I’d have probably 150 Percocets on me, which are 10 milligrams of oxycodone.
‘Then I would have about 100 Xanax on me, 100 Valium, and if I wasn’t traveling on a plane maybe I would have some weed and cocaine as well, ’cause I knew that if I traveled on a plane, not a good idea to try and go through security with cocaine and weed on you.’
For Jersey Shore, Mike, who kept his addiction a secret from production, would frequently travel to Italy and, on one trip, told ET he successfully smuggled in a ‘couple hundred Roxys in a shoe, in an Altoids case that I disassembled.’
Mike said he spent thousands of dollars on drugs and prescription drugs (Picture: Getty Images)
Mike credits his wife Lauren for helping with his sobriety (Picture: Getty Images for MTV)
He recalled a season 4 episode of the show during which he was hospitalised after headbutting a wall, saying his actions were the results of prescription medicine withdrawals as he had run out of pills.
On Dancing With The Stars season 11, in which he was paired with professional dancer Karina Smirnoff and was the fourth celebrity to be eliminated, Mike said he was ‘always high.’
When the extent of his drug addiction, and how much he had spent on pills and cocaine, was revealed, Mike said the figure didn’t come as a shock but served as a wake-up call.
Mike soared to fame as part of the original cast of Jersey Shore (Picture: Getty Images)
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Reflecting on becoming sober, he said: ‘I got to the point in my life I couldn’t hide it anymore. I got to the point where I needed to do something different, and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
‘Once I started to become sober, I really just turned everything over and was doing everything differently.’
Mike credits his wife Lauren Pesce, 38, who is the mother of their two children son Romeo Reign, two, and daughter Mia Bella, 10 months, for helping him stay on the right path.
The couple met in community college but took a decade-long break when Mike joined the cast of Jersey Shore.
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However, the college sweethearts reunited, and in October 2018, the couple got married shortly before Mike went to prison to serve eight months for tax evasion.
Mike appeared on all six seasons of Jersey Shore, from 2009 until 2012, and returned to the franchise with Jersey Shore: Family Vacation.
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He headbutted a wall in Italy when he ran out of pills.