I think one of the best ways to really keep kids off drugs is to talk to them in their own language. And it’s best when they hear about it from people they’ll actually listen to; people who speak on their level. So who better to warn kids to stay off drugs than Jackass star Steve-O?

Steve has a rap sheet so long I think his Wikipedia page almost exploded when I opened it. He’s struggled with serious drugs and mental illness for years, and in March was physically removed from his home by his friends, who forced him to check into a mental hospital. He’s been there ever sense, and recently wrote on his blog exactly why you shouldn’t do drugs.

After seeing “Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Addiction Special” on VH1 News, I figured it was time to put something out there for you all. I expected my part on that show to be much harder to watch than it wound up being. It made me want to explain a little bit of what I’ve been going through since I got clean, to help some of you understand how much damage drugs and alcohol have really done to me. I’ve now been clean for 115 days, and I’m, again, in a mental institution. I did so much cocaine, ketamine, pcp, nitrous oxide, and all sorts of other drugs, that, quite simply, my brain is f&%$ed up. As you can probably tell by the way I’m writing this, my cognitive skills are alright, but, I frequently suffer from horrible mood swings and severe depression. Those of you who have followed my warped mind’s trail on the Internet for a significant amount of time have, I’m sure, been very aware of those attributes, but, I just want you all to know that four f&%$ng months (almost) of not touching a damn thing that a psychiatrist didn’t perscribe to me hasn’t changed that shit. The medication that is prescribed to me doesn’t do the trick every day, let’s just put it that way. I’m back in the looney bin trying to get that shit right. The bottom line is that doing drugs f&%$ed my ass up and I’m going to be paying for it for a long time, probably for the rest of my life. Everyone’s going to make their own decisions in life, but nobody needs to make the same mistakes I made. I love you all,

[From Steve O’s Myspace blog]

I think that’s really good to hear. A lot of people experiment a bit with drugs and are fine, and that’s the end of the story. But there are always heartbreaking stories like Steve’s where it just ends up ruining a person’s life. I have a friend who has been in and out of mental institutions since high school in a case that sounds pretty similar to this.

Steve obviously has a ton of issues – both medical and mental – to work through. But it sounds like he’s taking them seriously, and hopefully will do whatever work needs to be done to get better.

Here’s Steve O at Maxim’s 2008 Hot 100 party in Los Angeles on May 21st. I’m assuming he’s either been in and out of the mental hospital and happened to be out that day, or he got some kind of… day pass? Photographer: Dimitri Halkidis; Images thanks to WENN.