How Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino's Drug Dependency Led to His Infamous Decision to Headbutt a Wall

The reality star ran head-first into a wall while fighting with 'Jersey Shore' castmate Ronnie Ortiz-Magro on season 4 of the MTV show

The image of Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino wearing a neck brace and sunglasses in Italy might just be one of the original memes. But the story behind the injury doesn’t lend itself to laughter.

In his new memoir Reality Check: Making the Best of The Situation – How I Overcame Addiction, Loss, and Prison, the 41-year-old Jersey Shore star revealed he hurt himself after depleting a supply of 125 Roxicet pills — a narcotic made of oxycodone and acetaminophen — that he had smuggled to Italy for filming season 4, forcing him into an involuntary detox.

“I was stuck and feeling worse by the day,” Sorrentino writes. “I tried to mask the inevitable dope sickness with copious amounts of alcohol since that was not only easy to get but socially acceptable and encouraged. To an extent, it worked, but I was a ticking timebomb.”

Related: Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino's Memoir Bombshells: Jersey Shore Orgies and a Mistake That 'Plagued' Him for Years

The father of two describes himself as “sick and depressed” and “in a horrible mental space when Ronnie [Ortiz-Magro] decided it was time to address his issues with me.” The fight boiled up because Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola claimed Sorrentino once told her Ortiz-Magro, 38, had five other women lined up to fly out to Italy, which upset the Bronx, New York, native.

Sorrentino and Ortiz-Margro physically fought and, “I snapped,” Sorrentino shares. “I hit a wall, literally and figuratively.”

Sorrentino ended up headbutting a wall “to show Ronnie how ready I was to throw down,” but he didn’t realize how dense the wall in their Florence apartment would be.

“A wall that, like in the States, I was expecting to be sheetrock. No, no, no, not in Italy. Unbeknownst to me, this was some ten-thousand-year-old cement wall from the f---ing Romans or some s---,” Sorrentino writes. “Like, Caeser may have headbutted this thing back in the day when he got in a fight with his roommate. As soon as The Situation’s forehead impacted that cement, I tumbled to the floor like a sack of potatoes.”

His housemates called an ambulance, which brought Sorrentino to the hospital on a stretcher. Doctors told Sorrentino he had a concussion and a sprained neck, and he returned to the apartment in a neck brace.

“It was a surreal moment — lying in a hospital bed in Italy, eyes closed, neck in a brace, head ringing,” Sorrentino writes. “My skin was also crawling, stomach cramping, and I was breaking out in cold sweats from withdrawals. I was in rough shape.”

But the injury got Sorrentino the one thing he wanted: pain pills.

“They prescribed me painkillers despite MTV telling the doctors not to give me anything,” he writes. “But it was only some weak codeine that barely took the edge off.”

Related: Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino Recalls the Night His Mom and Wife 'Saved Me' from a Heroin Spiral (Exclusive)

Sorrentino says his “emotions were in the basement” after the incident and admits that describing himself as “miserable would be a gross understatement.”

He contemplated leaving Jersey Shore and going back to rehab after shooting in Italy ended, but the show got picked up for another season, and Sorrentino had to fly straight to New Jersey to film. Back in Jersey, Sorrentino — who's now eight years sober — saw replenishing his pill supply as his only option.

“My brain and body lit up with the possibility of the physical and mental relief offered by finally getting more pills,” Sorrentino writes. “Any considerations of rehab and quitting the show would have to wait.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Reality Check: Making the Best of The Situation – How I Overcame Addiction, Loss, and Prison is out now everywhere books are sold.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.