Alex Van Halen has recently disclosed that his brother Eddie began misusing steroid pills toward the end of his life. Initially prescribed by doctors to reduce swelling following brain surgery, Eddie’s use of steroids escalated, as Alex explained in a recent interview with Rolling Stone.

“You know, he fought until the end,” Alex said. “Anybody who thought he was anything less than that can suck my you-know-what… If you knew what he had to go through to beat the cancer — he wouldn’t do traditional treatment. Some of the off-the-wall sh*t caused such a toxic mix in his body. And, yeah, you shouldn’t drink with it, Ed!”

Reflecting on Eddie’s mindset in his final days, Alex remarked, “I don’t know what was driving him near the end. There was something, an itch that he couldn’t scratch, something he needed to do. Up to the very end, he was making music… Quite frankly, it wasn’t very good. But that wasn’t the point. That’s what he did.”

In his recently published book, Brothers, Alex further opens up about Eddie. Prior to the book’s release, the drummer shared an emotional audio clip titled “Overture,” where he expressed his love for his brother and remarked that he was “supposed to die first” as the older sibling.

“Since you’ve been gone, I catch myself talking to you, yelling at you, in my head or sometimes out loud. I still have trouble believing you’re gone, and probably for me, you never will be. Outliving my little brother, this just wasn’t the plan. As the older brother, I was supposed to die first. Same as always, Ed, butting in line,” he said.

Eddie Van Halen passed away in October 2020 after suffering a stroke following a long battle with throat cancer.

Brothers is now available, featuring “Unfinished,” the last piece of music Alex and Eddie recorded together.