Phish Frontman Reflects on DUI Arrest That Helped Him Quit Opioids & What His Wife Said When He Went to Jail (Exclusive)

"I'm so grateful that it didn't kill me," Trey Anastasio — who recently opened the Divided Sky residential recovery center — tells PEOPLE of battling opioid addiction

• Phish rocker Trey Anastasio struggled with opioid addiction for years before getting sober in January 2007

• He received help after he was arrested for heroin possession and driving while intoxicated in December 2006

• Now he's hoping to help others, opening the Divided Sky residential recovery center in Ludlow, Vt.

Trey Anastasio looks back on his darkest days with gratitude.

The Phish frontman recently opened Divided Sky, a residential recovery center in Ludlow, Vt., to help other addicts struggling with the same demons he once faced.

After first taking prescription painkillers for dental surgery, Anastasio got hooked on OxyContin by 2000.

“Everybody kept saying it was safe. They’re so addictive, it’s like you’re down the rabbit hole before you know it. It just completely got out of control,” Anastasio, 59, says, adding doctors would hand out prescriptions “like candy” backstage at shows. “I tried to stop a thousand times. I would look in the mirror and tell myself, ‘What a loser.’ ”

By 2004 “I lost my band, then I almost lost my family,” he says of how his issues forced Phish to go on hiatus and caused tension at home with his wife Susan, 58, and their daughters Isabella, 27, and Eliza, 29. “Drinking and drugging, for me it was a slow death of isolation.”

Anastasio finally got the help he so desperately needed after Dec. 15, 2006, when he was pulled over in upstate New York for heroin possession and driving while intoxicated.

“The minute I got arrested, I was relieved,” Anastasio says, growing emotional when thinking about how he could have harmed someone while under the influence.

As he was cuffed, “I knew it was over,” Anastasio adds.

The rocker pleaded guilty to a reduced drug-possession charge and spent 14 months in meetings and community service ordered by drug-treatment court.

There were some bumps in the road, though. On Thanksgiving Day in 2007, Anastasio found himself behind bars because he’d accidentally missed a court-mandated recovery meeting while he was doing volunteer work with the homeless.

“I had to go to jail,” Anastasio recalls. “It was three days and two nights, which is long enough.”

When he was released, he says, “my wife was leaning on the car like Lorraine Bracco in Goodfellas,” with their young daughters by her side. “I was kind of like, ‘Did you have to take the kids out of school to see Dad coming out of jail?’ And she said, ‘If you don’t want your kids to see you coming out of jail, you better stop going to jail.’ ”

The regimented program helped him get sober; he hasn’t touched a drink or drugs — or been back to jail — since.

“I’m so grateful that it didn’t kill me,” he says of addiction. “It could have.”

Anastasio credits his support system — including his Phish bandmates and his family — for helping him stay sober the past 17 years after opioid addiction nearly stole everything from him. Now he’s helping other addicts at Divided Sky, a nonclinical, abstinence-based center that follows the 12-step program.

“I’ve seen people in dire situations come back from this. It’s never too late to have hope,” Anastasio says. “Families can be saved.”

Related: Phish's Trey Anastasio Opens Addiction Recovery Center with Caseworker Who Helped Him Get Sober 17 Years Ago (Exclusive)

Opening the 46-bed facility is a meaningful full-circle moment for Anastasio: Melanie Gulde, his caseworker from nearly two decades ago, serves as its program director.

“She saved my life,” Anastasio says of Gulde. “She’s a badass, but she’s also very loving.”

Gulde shares a mutual admiration for Anastasio and believes his story can help others.

“I hope people take away the fact that humans are resilient. Recovery is the greatest gift we can give ourselves,” she says. “Divided Sky came about as Trey’s desire to give back on a bigger scale. I have had countless people tell me that Trey has been an inspiration for their own recovery. We must do the work, and that is exactly what he does.”

Anastasio — who released a new Phish album, Evolve, earlier this month — began raising money for Divided Sky in 2020, when he played his “Beacon Jams” virtual residency at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. Now with Divided Sky open, he has a message for families facing addiction.

“This can end. Anyone can get off drugs and stop drinking,” he says. “Your loved one is a sick person trying to get well, not a bad person trying to get good.”

For more from Trey Anastasio, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere now.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.