Aaron Carter’s Struggle With Addiction

Aaron Carter’s career started when he was barely old enough to walk to school by himself.  He wanted to perform and because of who his brother was, he was inspired to be just like him.

As time went on and fame was coming in fast, Aaron had to experience things that no kid had to deal with at that age. There was so much happening to the point that Aaron had to take things in his own way. There was things going on within his family that made you think why they would put their kids in this type of world knowing that everyone was going to tear them apart and criticize them for everything they did, but as we all know, when it comes to kids in the TV and film industry, parents don’t care, all they see is money. They will push their kids to do things that will eventually lead them down a path that’s going to be hard to come back from.

When Aaron got older and things started to appear in the media about his family. We began to learn things that were happening like how his mom was handling Aaron’s money and the struggles with drugs and mental health.

At 16, Aaron alleged his mother took money, causing him to file for emancipation, though the dispute was later reportedly resolved.

In 2006, Aaron and his family appeared in an 8-episode reality show “House of Carters.” It was during that show where the tension among the Carter siblings were high and Aaron and brother, Nick were constantly at each other’s throats. Issues may have started to appear before the show, but with pressures of being in and around cameras, may have added more to the stress. Things started to resurface causing fights among the family.

Nick had offered to pay for therapy, but out of all 5 siblings, Aaron’s twin sister, Angel was the only one that accepted the help. She said that was a "defining moment" in her life. Along with subsequent therapy, she was able to reconnect with Nick as an adult. Therapy saved her life.

You could tell by the way Aaron looked that he was struggling. He lost weight and it was obvious that something was going on. In July of 2017, he was arrested for driving under the influence and possession of marijuana and in September of that year, he checked himself into rehab.

Aaron told “Us” Magazine. “I’ll say here right in front of all y’all, I’m not ashamed of it. I have issues. I have post-traumatic stress disorder. I never wanted my parents to divorce. I never wanted my dad to die. I never wanted my sister to die at 27. It’s really hard because after my parents divorced I was like, man … Everything just spiraled out of control.”

By the time 2019 came along, Aaron admitted that he was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia, acute anxiety and manic depression. He was prescribed with xanax, seroquel, gabapentin, hydroxyzine, trazodone, omeprazen.

Just before his passing in 2022, Aaron claimed that he was sober, but his definition of sober was different from what everyone else defined as sober. He was what he called “Cali Sober.” He was 5 years clean from hard substances, but still smoked weed which he believed wasn’t a real drug. He went to rehab 5 times with the last time being just a couple months before his death. He wanted to work on his mental health and tackle “triggers.”

Aaron had admitted that he had an addiction to huffing compressed air which according to Aaron caused him to have over 100 seizures because his body was severely damaged by huffing the compressed air.

His death at age 34 was later determined to have been caused by the effects of inhaling compressed gas and taking prescription medication. Aaron leaves behind a son named Prince. Out of all the Carter siblings, Nick and Angel are the only ones to remain.