Ozzy Osbourne - Trust Me, I’m Dr. Ozzy

Some names and personal details in this book have been changed for privacy reasons, and most questions have been edited.

Facts in the pull-out boxes and quiz sections were supplied by Dr. Ozzy’s research department (he’s called Chris), as Dr. Ozzy’s memory of events between 1968 and the present are not entirely reliable.

This book should not be relied upon for medical purposes.

Do not use DR. OZZY if you suffer from medical conditions, ailments, or other health concerns, as this may cause sudden and unsafe death or death-like symptoms. Discuss your mental health with a qualified psychiatrist if you’re considering using DR. OZZY. In the rare event that use of DR. OZZY results in the growth of winged testicles, seek immediate medical help, or fly to your nearest hospital. If you are under the age of 18 or an extraterrestrial lifeform, you should not use DR. OZZY. Trials have shown that a low dose of DR. OZZY is no safer than a high dose of DR. OZZY. Even trace amounts of DR. OZZY, which may be undetectable to the human eye, can result in serious damage to wildlife. If you suspect the presence of DR. OZZY, inform government agencies immediately and remain indoors. Use of DR. OZZY is legally prohibited in many territories and may be considered a felony in the United States. If accidental use of DR. OZZY should occur, wash the affected area immediately. DR. OZZY should not be taken with other self-help products, as confusion and bleeding could arise. Users of DR. OZZY have reported instances of cranial detonation, self-amputation, and madness. It is not possible to determine whether these events were directly related to DR. OZZY or to other factors. DR. OZZY does not protect against sexually transmitted diseases, ingrowing toenails, and bovine spongiform encephalitis. The most frequently observed side-effects of DR. OZZY include hysteria and indigestion. Less commonly, leprosy may occur. Also, in clinical studies of DR. OZZY, a small number of men experienced certain sexual side-effects, such as penis detachment and ocular ejaculation. These occurred in less than 99.9% of men and went away in those who stopped using DR. OZZY because of other, more serious side-effects, such as prolonged agony and screaming.

*Might not be legal where you live

If someone had told me a few years ago that I’d end up writing a book of advice, I’d have punched them in the nose for taking the piss. I mean, unless the advice is how to end up dead or in jail, I’m not exactly qualified. I’m Ozzy Osbourne, not Oprah fucking Winfrey.

But here I am: “Dr. Ozzy,” as people call me now. And to be totally honest with you—I love this new gig.

I suppose it all started just before my last world tour, when a bloke from The Sunday Magazine in London came over to my house and asked if I wanted to be their new “health and relationship” columnist. When I’d finished spitting out tea over my Yorkshire terrier, I asked him, “Are you sure you’ve got the right person?” He said yeah, they were sure. If I wanted the job, the guy added, readers would write in with their problems—everything from stubbed toes to tearaway kids and fall-outs with the in-laws—and I’d give my answers. I wouldn’t even have to put pen to paper: someone would call me up every week so I could dictate my words of wisdom over the telephone.

“Look—are you absolutely 100 per cent sure you’ve got the right person?” I asked him again.

He just smiled.

The funny thing is, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense in a crazy way. I mean, by all accounts I’m a medical miracle. It’s all very well going on a bender for a couple of weeks, but mine went on for the best part of 40 years. At one point I was knocking back four bottles of cognac a day, blacking out, coming to again, and carrying on. Meanwhile, during the filming of The Osbournes , I was shoving 42 different types of prescription medication down my neck every single day. Each one of those drugs had about twenty or thirty different side-effects, so at any time, there were about a thousand things wrong with me just thanks to the pills. And that was before the dope I was smoking in my “safe” room, away from the cameras; or the crates of beer I was putting away; or the speed I was doing before my daily jogs around Beverly Hills. I also used to get through cigars like they were cigarettes. I’d smoke ’em in bed. “ Do you mind ?” I’d ask Sharon, as I lit up a Cuban the size of the Red October. “Please, go ahead” she’d say—before whacking me with a copy of Vanity Fair .

Of course, I’ve also taken a few… well, not-exactly-legal things in my time. There are probably rats in U.S. Army labs who’ve seen fewer chemicals than I have. What’s amazing is, none of that dodgy shit ever killed me. On the other hand, maybe it shouldn’t be such a surprise, given all the other things I’ve also survived: like being hit by a plane (it crashed into my tour bus when I was asleep with Sharon in the back); or getting a false-positive HIV test (it turned out that my immune system was knocked out by booze and cocaine); or a suspected rabies infection (after eating a bat); or being told that I had Parkinson’s disease (it was actually a rare genetic tremor). I was even put in the loony bin for a while. “Do you masturbate, Mr Osbourne?” was the first thing the guy in the white coat asked me. “I’m here for my head, not my dick!” I told him.

Oh, and yeah, I’ve been dead twice: it happened (so I’m told) while I was in chemically induced coma after I broke my neck in a quad bike accident. I’ve got more metal screws in me now than an IKEA flatpack—all thanks to the amazing doctors and nurses at the NHS.

I always used to say that when I die, I should donate my body to the Natural History Museum. But since accepting the job as Dr. Ozzy—which snowballed into a gig at Rolling Stone , too—I don’t have to any more, ’cos a bunch of scientists from Harvard University offered to take sample of my DNA and map out my entire “human genome.” “What d’you wanna do that for?” I asked them. “To find out why you’re still alive,” they said. Thanks to them, I now know for sure that I’m a “genetic anomaly”—or at least that’s what they told a room full of mega-brains at TEDMED, a medical conference in San Diego, California, when they announced the results in 2010 (see chapter 7).