Famous Recovering Alcoholic – Edison Pena

And who the heck is Edison Peña? Well…he is the worlds most famous trapped miner. One year ago today Edison Peña was one happy camper, being one of the 33 miners rescued in Copiapó, Chile from the San José mine, where he and 32 others had been trapped for almost 70 days. During the year that followed, he made headlines when he ran the 2010 New York City Marathon and afterwards appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, where he sang a few bars of Presley’s hit “Suspicious Minds”.

Now, Peña has returned to the media with a new message of caution, detailing a struggle with alcohol and drugs that landed him in rehab a couple of months ago, according to El Mercurio’s Sabado magazine.

“I used to drink before and after interviews, to get the adrenaline down, to calm down,” Peña told Sabado. “This is what I used do, it’s what I do: I clown around to disguise reality, but I’m feeling terrible on the inside.” Pena had given in to cocaine and alcohol and slipped into an alternate reality he says he yearns to shake off. “There’s this parallel me, we are trying to hide him … like Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” the 35-year-old Pena said. “We want to lock him up in a box and keep him there. He wants to come out.”

This is not the first time Peña has spoken out about recovering from being trapped. He told Reuters in August, “I’m in a bad way, I’m in a bad way. What did you expect?” Edison is hopeful for his future, but knows a relapse is possible. He says he plans to focus on his music and if he needs the money, return to working in a mine.

Check out Mr. Peña’s appearance on Letterman and I am sure you will agree he deserves the title of worlds most famous miner. We wish him the best in his recovery efforts. Hopefully someday he will make it to the top of this list of famous miners I have never heard of.