Dax Shepard Reveals Close to-Demise 85 MPH Automobile Accident

Dax Shepard is opening up a few terrifying second from his teenage years, one that just about value him his life. The actor and podcast host revealed on a latest episode of “Armchair Professional” that he was concerned in a critical automobile crash throughout his senior yr of highschool, when a late-night drive took a sudden and harmful flip.

In keeping with Shepard, he and a good friend had been driving from Toledo to Detroit in a Ford Probe. It was late, and Shepard had an early morning shift forward of him, so he determined to stretch out and sleep within the backseat. Earlier than nodding off, he double-checked that his good friend was okay to drive. The reply was a assured sure, regardless of the cruise management being set to 85 miles per hour.

That confidence didn’t final lengthy.

Shepard recalled being jolted awake by the sound of gravel hitting the facet of the automobile. When he appeared up, his good friend was fully slumped over behind the wheel, quick asleep.

He tried to seize management, but it surely was already too late. The automobile veered to the facet, launched into the air, and started rolling down the freeway. Shepard mentioned his thoughts instantly went to the worst-case state of affairs, the road of pine bushes alongside the Michigan street. “I knew if we hit a kind of, that was it,” he shared.

Because the automobile continued to flip, Shepard skilled one thing surprising. As an alternative of panic, he felt calm. After a rush of concern and realization that dying felt moments away, a wierd sense of peace took over. He described it as oddly comforting, saying it felt like his physique simply accepted what was about to occur.

The automobile rolled round ten instances earlier than lastly coming to a cease, the wrong way up. In opposition to all odds, they by no means hit a tree. Each Shepard and his good friend crawled out by way of the home windows, shaken however alive. In some way, neither of them was critically damage.

The expertise caught with Shepard lengthy after the crash. He admitted he questioned for days afterward whether or not he had really died and was nonetheless processing what had occurred.

Even now, many years later, the reminiscence hasn’t light. Shepard says the second was unforgettable, and it completely modified how he travels. To today, he refuses to go to sleep when another person is behind the wheel.

That brush with dying wasn’t the one second that reshaped how Shepard views survival. Through the years, the actor has been simply as open about his lengthy wrestle with habit.

Shepard has by no means shied away from speaking about his sobriety journey, even when it’s uncomfortable. In 2020, he revealed that after 16 years sober, he suffered a relapse, a setback he later addressed candidly on “In Reality.” In keeping with Shepard, the relapse started when persistent ache points together with his hand and shoulder resurfaced, main him again to prescription ache medicine.

What began as official remedy slowly spiraled uncontrolled. Shepard admitted he was taking way more capsules than prescribed, shopping for extra medicine, and mendacity to individuals closest to him, all whereas carrying what he described as an “monumental secret.”