Elton John calls marijuana legalization 'one of the greatest mistakes of all time' after addiction struggles

"I maintain that it's addictive," he said. "It leads to other drugs. And when you're stoned - and I've been stoned - you don't think normally."

The singer-songwriter added, "Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time."

In 1974, the same year John released hits like "Bennie and the Jets" and "Candle in the Wind," he was introduced to cocaine and eventually became addicted.

"You make terrible decisions on drugs," he recalled. "I wanted love so badly, I'd just take hostages. I'd see someone I liked and spend three or four months together, and then they would resent me because they had nothing in their life apart from me. It really upsets me, thinking back on how many people I probably hurt."

He added, "I wasn't able to creatively invest any time in writing material that related to him until he actually found himself, and then it was easier for me to reflect upon it."

"It's tough to tell someone that they're being an a--hole, and it's tough to hear," he admitted in his interview with Time. "Eventually I made the choice to admit that I'm being an a--hole."

Later in the interview, John touched on sobriety again, beginning his statement with, "I've never lost the excitement of buying a new record, a new book, a new photograph."

He went on to say that given the choice between never being able to play music again or never being able to listen to it, he would give up playing, saying that listening to music has been what has "kept me going."

He and Furnish share two sons, Zachary, born in 2010, and Elijah, born in 2013. John told Time that if he had the opportunity to give them his talent and the fame that came with it, he would not do it.

"I've lived an incredible life, but it's been a hell of a life, and it's been a slog," he said. "I wouldn't want that amount of pressure on them."

"If people remember that we tried to change the world a little bit, we were kind, we tried to help people," John said, that would be good enough for him. "And then, apart from that, there was the music."