Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino Says He Was ‘Always High’ on ‘Dancing With the Stars’

Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is getting real about the depths of his drug addiction as the Jersey Shore star approaches eight years of sobriety in December. The MTV star is set to release his new memoir, Reality Check: Making the Best of The Situation – How I Overcame Addiction, Loss, and Prison, on Dec. 19, and opened up to Entertainment Tonight about how his drug use affected every aspect of his life, including his brief run on Dancing With the Stars.

As Jersey Shore became an overnight success, it catapulted Sorrentino and his co-stars Pauly D, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, Jenni “JWoww” Farley, Vinny Guadagnino, Angelina Pivarnick and Deena Cortese into the spotlight from 2009 to 2012. And with the show’s success came plenty of money, which Sorrentino admits led to him spending a whopping $500,000 on drugs, which he used not only while filming Jersey Shore, but also during his time on Dancing With the Stars.

Sorrentino says he was “always high” during his time on Season 11 of the ABC dance competition, during which he was paired with pro Karina Smirnoff before their elimination in week four. The reality personality said he was into “everything” when it came to drugs, from oxycodone to Xanax and Valium as well as cocaine. Hiding his addiction from handlers and the production staff on Jersey Shore was “extremely hard,” Sorrentino added, and figuring out how he would smuggle drugs into filming “consumed all my time.”

Looking back on his drug use and the money he spent on drugs, Sorrentino said he can see just how far things spiraled out of control before he got sober. “I mean, when the lawyers told me, ‘You spent about half a million on cocaine and oxycodone,’ I was like, ‘Man, that definitely sounds about right,’ because it was true,” he said. “I got to the point in my life I couldn’t hide it anymore. I got to the point where I needed to do something different, and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Once I started to become sober, I really just turned everything over and was doing everything differently.” 

Sorrentino’s memoir, Reality Check: Making the Best of The Situation — How I Overcame Addiction, Loss, and Prison, is available Dec. 19 wherever you buy books.