As one of the founding members of the celebrated and influential rap group Run-DMC, Darryl DMC McDaniels seemed to have it all: talent, money, fame, prestige. Yet while his music was hitting number one on the Billboard charts, a feat most musicians only dream of, McDaniels’s achievements were shrouded by his private struggles with alcohol and an anxiety fueled by the need to please others.

As Run-DMC’s success grew, overwhelming McDaniels all the more, his relationship with alcohol shifted: from being a crutch that helped him perform to a means of escape from a life that had become unbearable. McDaniels was forced to make an abrupt lifestyle change when he was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis and his doctor told him flatly, “You drink, you die.” It was at this crossroad that the famed rapper finally chose life. In his quest to recover, he found what he’d been desperate for—a love, for his future wife, and, at long last, for himself.