Flea playing with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2016.
Sixty-one-year-old Michael Balzary, better known as Flea to his legions of fans, has led an unbelievable life as the bass player in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, one of the wildest and most popular bands of the past four decades.
Unfortunately, his life has also been disrupted countless times by people close to him dying of addiction. Notably, Flea lost Chilli Pepper’s guitar player, Hillel Slovak, to addiction in 1988, as well as his friend, actor River Phoenix, in 1993.
His bandmates, guitarist John Frusciante and singer Anthony Kiedis, have also struggled with drug abuse throughout their lives. Flea himself started using drugs at the age of 11 and had done everything by the time he stopped at 30.
He also discussed his inspiration for getting clean: aging gracefully.
“My only advice is to age gracefully; it is such a great aspiration to have,” Flea said. “And luckily, around that age, I wanted to age gracefully. I wanted to be able to be an elderly person with a light on. I wanted to keep growing. I loved Duke Ellington. I wanted to try to keep reinventing to be a humble student all my life. So, I guess my advice is to try to love yourself.”
He also shared how, after getting off drugs, he was able to work on his anxiety. During this process,he realized that to be compassionate and grow, you have to embrace all of your feelings—even the ones you wish you didn’t have.
“When I stopped doing drugs, I wanted to feel everything. I wanted to feel all the pain, all the suffering, all the anxiety because I knew that the only way that I was going to grow was to feel it. I know that we all yearn to be as deep, kind, compassionate, and as good as we can be, and the only way to be that is to feel your pain, sit there, and let it wash over you,” Flea said. “I'm not a religious man … but I believe in God, and I pray and when I'm hurting and I feel terrible, I get on my knees and I say ‘Dear God, give me some more. Thank you.’ … I know that within my suffering I will grow, and that was a huge thing to realize.”
After a 2015 snowboarding accident where he broke his arm and required surgery, Flea was prescribed a 2-month supply of OxyContin, and he went through the same numbing experience he had 22 years before and knew he didn’t want anymore. After a month, he stopped taking the pills for his pain.
Ultimately, Flea believes that drugs rob people of something vital to his life and musical expression: an honest connection to the world. “I'm doing drugs and it was like, ‘Whoa, you know I'm in this rarefied air now,’ and it's really like it's just an old and pathetic story,” he admits. “The opportunity to be straight and to actually connect with people in true ways and to be willing to feel lonely and to be patient enough to have a real, actual honest communication whether it means going to get a taco and looking at the woman who gives it to you and smiling at her and her smiling back and you're actually sharing a beautiful moment. Those are the little triumphs that for me make not being on drugs the greatest thing.”
- Guy pets one kitty then is swarmed by cats fighting over his lap ›
- 'The Rock' shares one simple change that's helped him achieve his massive success ›
- Popular veterinarian Dr. Lisa Lippman shares 5 tips to help you and your dog thrive this holiday season ›
- Father's gives tearjerking speech on grief after son's passing due to fentanyl - Upworthy ›
- People over 50 share how they have aged gracefully - Upworthy ›
A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via 
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
Gif of baby being baptized
Woman gives toddler a bath Canva
An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.