Priscilla Presley’s son, Navarone Garcia, credits his mother for helping him conquer his battle with substance abuse.
Garcia – whom Elvis Presley’s widow welcomed with computer engineer Marco Garibaldi in 1987 – recently opened up to Entertainment Tonight about his decades-long drug problem and how he is now on the mend.
Garcia, 37, spoke to the outlet while touring with Michael DeLeon, the founder of Steered Straight. According to their website, they are the top school educator internationally for vaping and fentanyl awareness.
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He used drugs in high school, which eventually manifested into a horrific dependency on heroin, which he used up to “40 times a day.” After he entered rehab in 2015, a drug test confirmed that most of the time he thought he was using heroin, he was actually using fentanyl.
“That’s a lot on the body to handle, and it became intolerable and unsustainable,” he admitted. “I would try to keep it from her, you know, what I was going through, but after a week of withdrawals alone I’d [call and say], ‘Mom, I’m a week into it, but I got to come to your house, and I’m going to be there for another two weeks,’ and she says, ‘OK. You need some soup?'”
He added, “I would need help crawling to the bathroom … she would be assisting. She was amazing the whole way.”
Garcia explained that he and his half-sister, Lisa Marie Presley, both used drugs around the same time, but never together.
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“It’s just funny because [Lisa Marie] and I, you know, had been struggling sometimes with the same thing at the same time,” Garcia told the outlet. “It was never like we ever used together — we’d always do everything separate — but not even realize that we were both struggling with the same thing at the same time.”
The late Lisa Marie opened up about her struggle with substance abuse in 2019’s “United States of Opioids: A Prescription for Liberating a Nation in Pain.” She detailed that she had become became addicted to opioids after the birth of her twins in 2008.
On January 12, 2023, Lisa Marie died at her home in California. The only child of Elvis and Priscilla was 54.
Garcia attended Lisa Marie’s public memorial service, and he told Entertainment Tonight, “Somebody sent me a picture from the sky in Alabama that day … and it literally looked like there was an angel that has my sister’s face made out of the clouds.”
He called the memory “remarkable.”
Garcia has been in recovery for the last few years and also credits his band, Them Guns, for keeping him strong and committed to a drug-free life. He told the outlet that his mother is a fan of his band’s music.
“She likes it. You know she’s used to the best, so …” he said with a laugh.
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