What We Know About General Hospital Star Bryan Craig’s Overdose

General Hospital’s Bryan Craig revealed that after a botched surgery, he was prescribed painkillers and ended up overdosing on them.

General Hospital's Bryan Craig discussed what led to a painkiller overdose.Photo bySoap Hub

Bryan Craig’s recent return to General Hospital as a vision of Morgan in his dad Sonny’s mind was far too fleeting for the fans. However, he still remains in their hearts as they hold out hope that he’ll return for a longer stretch. In the meantime, Craig has been open with his followers and shared a personal story about an awful incident he had when he needed painkillers.

Botched Surgery Caused Tremendous Pain

Craig appeared on the August 11 episode of castmate Maurice Benard’s (Sonny) YouTube series, State of Mind, recorded in front of a live audience. He discussed his life and career and explained that in dealing with the pandemic and later the actor’s strike, he chose to go running at the beach to clear his head — even though he doesn’t like running — but managed to work his way up to one and a half miles on average.

A fan had asked him about a time when his social media posts seemed odd, and he explained, “So, I had a minor surgery on my head,” continuing, “I won’t say who or how, but, uh, it was a botched surgery, and they nicked my occipital nerve in the back of my head.” (Find out how soap operas were affected by the strike.)

This shocked the audience, and Craig continued, remarking, “So for three or four months, I couldn’t move my head to the left, to the right, up or down. I couldn’t lay it on a pillow.” He further noted that this did not bode well because he had insomnia, to begin with, and further explained the surprise, “I did not sleep. When I’m telling you, I did not sleep for four months…I finally started to understand how that can affect your mind and your body. I was hallucinating…that’s how bad it was.” (Learn why Craig initially left the soap.)

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Painkillers Nearly Cost His Life

He then elaborated that because of the pain caused by the accidental damage to his brain, the doctors gave him painkillers. “I was in so much excruciating pain from morning till night that I was taking these things like, [almost begging the medication to] ‘just please help me.’”

Then came Craig’s most shocking revelation of all: “[I] ended up OD’ing [and] had to go to the ER because I took too much, uh, what was it, Vicodin or something? It was the worst three [or] four months of my life.”

His story then became positive as he explained, “That’s when I started doing the runs, [and was] when I finally got better because I was so grateful to have my health.” His experience left a profound mark on his psyche as he realized, “You take things for granted until you’re completely incapacitated for three [or] four months, and you can’t do anything. And I was waking up at like four in the morning, like ‘Yes! Like let’s go on a run!’ still only running 1.5 miles,” which caused the audience to chuckle.

He finished his story by remarking, “But I was so happy to be normal like healed and stuff again…So yeah, that’s crazy.”