"I Am Addicted To Prescription Pain Medication"

He was not much of a success as a disc jockey, either. Fired twice (and briefly on the dole, a detail Limbaugh overlooks when he rants against welfare), Limbaugh finally scored when he replaced Morton Downey Jr., an angry right-wing talk-radio host, on a Sacramento station. Limbaugh had a lighter, more satiric touch, though his gibes at the helpless could be a little crude. (He once suggested staging a "Homeless Olympics" with events like "the 10-meter shopping-cart relay, the Dumpster dig and the hop, skip and trip.")

He quickly became the patron saint of conservative talk radio and has stayed on top of the charts for more than a decade. (His most recent contract, signed in 2001 for eight years, was for $285 million.) But his personal life left something to be desired. Despite his fervent moralizing, he smoked a little pot and watched a little porn (as he has publicly admitted). His first two marriages failed. His second wife, Michelle, told Vanity Fair that Limbaugh's father never quite approved of his career path, and that Rush would be depressed and deflated every time he got off the phone with his dad. He struggled with his weight, which ballooned to as high as 320 pounds (he now weighs between 250 and 275 pounds).

His self-absorption made dating difficult. Two women who dated Limbaugh told conservative activist (and Limbaugh friend) Paul Weyrich that they couldn't seem to get his attention. "They both said, 'I'll never go on a date with him again'," Weyrich told NEWSWEEK. "They did not have a good time. He talked about himself and didn't seem interested in them at all."

In 1994, Limbaugh married his current spouse, Marta Fitzgerald, a former aerobics instructor who is nine years younger (they met through a computer bulletin-board service). Shortly after they were married, a $125-a-plate audience became uneasy when Limbaugh called his wife onstage and then seemed to forget that she was there. As he ranted at Democrats, she seemed to cower and edge toward the shadows. "Rush!" some yelled from a nearby table. "Your wife!" Startled, Limbaugh pulled her to his side and later apologized to her on the air (despite his on-air bombast, Limbaugh is known for his politeness, even gentleness at times).

None of Limbaugh's friends contacted by NEWSWEEK seemed to know he had a drug problem. "What's interesting," one of these friends told NEWSWEEK, "is that he apparently hid the pills from his wife." Limbaugh's dependence on painkillers began after an unsuccessful back surgery in the late '90s. In last week's radio confessional, he told his listeners that he had twice gone to a hospital to detox. "What did he tell his wife when he checked into the treatment center?--unless these were 24- to 48-hour clinics to clean out your system. There's an awful lot of mystery about it," said the friend.

Limbaugh may have dropped a hint a few months ago when he joked, in a seemingly offhand way on his radio show, that he had been "popping pills" for back pain. He drew a very sympathetic response two years ago when he announced that he had suddenly gone deaf--the result of some kind of autoimmune illness, he said at the time. Much of his hearing was restored by an electronic device implanted in his ear, although his partial deafness has added to his dislike of social gatherings, says a friend. Suspicion has now turned to his drug habit: repeated large doses of hydrocodone, a painkiller sold under the brand name Vicodin, can cause severe hearing impairment.