Hawkins had long battled with his addiction to drugs and an overdose in 2001 nearly spelled the end of the legendary rock band.
Speaking to Apple Music's Matt Wilkinson in 2018, Hawkins opened up about a 2001 heroin overdose on a trip to London, which left him in a coma for two weeks.
"Well, I was partying a lot," he said.
"I wasn't like a junkie per se, but I was partying. There was a year where the partying just got a little too heavy. Thank God on some level this guy gave me the wrong line with the wrong thing one night and I woke up going, 'What the f**k happened?' That was a real changing point for me."
After the August 2001 incident, the band had to pause work on their fourth studio album One by One while Hawkins recovered.
During the break, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl accepted an offer from Queens of the Stone Age to play on their album Songs for the Deaf – which the drummer thought "looked like the end" of the band.
The band resumed work on One by One in October 2001.
"We tried to make One by One and it really looked like the end," he said.
"I don't think that glamorising that lifestyle is a good thing – I just don't. I think it's a bad message. I think people are gonna do what they're gonna do, kids are gonna f**k around, they're gonna experiment.
"If you have an addictive personality or you're a f**king dumb kid, you're gonna get drawn into it. You gotta be careful, man."
In another interview with British magazine Kerrang! last year, Hawkins shared harrowing details of the overdose.
"Everyone has their own path and I took it too far," he said.
"I was partying in London one night, and I mistakenly did something and it changed everything. I believed the bullsh*t myth of live hard and fast, die young. I'm not here to preach about not doing drugs, because I loved doing drugs, but I just got out of control for a while and it almost got me.
"I was heading down a road that was going to lead to even worse paths. Whether someone's sober, or they like a glass of wine with dinner, or they want a bottle of Jägermeister before they go on stage, or they like to smoke doobies all day long, everyone has their own path, and I took it too far.
"I'm glad it got knocked on the head at that point. I wouldn't take anything away that I've done or been through either, because it's all part of the trip and the journey. I'm trying to be as candid as I can be."
It's not clear when Hawkins began using drugs again.
Speaking to Ultimate Classic Rock in 2018, he said he had taken steps to get clean but did not want to get into details.
"I'm not an AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] dude," he said.
"I don't really discuss how I live my life in that regard. I have (a) system that works for me. There was a year [when] the partying just got a little too heavy. And thank God, on some level this guy gave me the wrong line or the wrong thing one night, and I woke up going, 'What the f**k happened?'
"That was a real changing point for me. There's no happy ending with hard drugs. You're gonna experiment, you're gonna do all that sh*t, but at the end of the day, there's no happy ending."
In the 2021 Kerrang! interview, Hawkins revealed how mountain biking had helped him move forward.
"I get ideas for songs and it's where I do a lot of my problem solving and deep thinking," he said. "Sometimes I write songs in my head and then jump in my studio to put it down straight away. I like to go by myself. I like listening to old Aerosmith and Van Halen records to kind of pump me up. It's my time and I love it. It's a chance to clear your head out."
Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2017, Grohl described the three years from 1991 to 1994 as a "crash course in the danger of a band becoming popular so quickly".
"When the Foo Fighters started we made some pretty clear decisions about what to do and what not to do," he said.
Grohl told the publication the to-do list included "go out and play some shows, start from the ground up".
"And the not-to-do list?" Rolling Stone wrote. "Grohl laughs ruefully. 'I mean … heroin?'"
Hawkins, then sober, also opened up about the overdose in the same interview.
"We went through a lot of crazy periods with our band early on," he said, adding that since then it had been smooth sailing.
"I'm not saying that I can't piss Dave off, or Dave can't bum me out – Dave can hurt my feelings more than anyone else in the world. But there's not an evil, out-to-get-you vibe. It's more sibling-like."
Hawkins was found on dead Friday in a hotel room at the Four Seasons Casa Medina in Bogota, Colombia.
An ambulance had been called to the hotel after the 50-year-old complained of "chest pain", but he was unable to be revived.
"The city's Emergency Regulation Centre received an alert about a patient with chest pain in a hotel located in the north of the city," the Secretariat of Health said in a statement.
"The District Secretariat of Health regrets the death of this talented and world-famous drummer and sends a message of condolences to his family, bandmates and fans."
No official cause of death has been released, but prosecutors in Colombia released a statement on Saturday saying toxicological tests on urine from Hawkins' body preliminarily found 10 psychoactive substances and medicines, including marijuana, opioids, tricyclic antidepressants and benzodiazepines.
Reports emerged on Sunday that Hawkins died of cardiovascular collapse, and that his heart was double the weight of a typical adult male's at the time of his death.
According to the Colombian publication Semana, his heart weighed over 600g, leaving forensic experts "shocked". Most men have a heart that weighs between 280 and 340 grams.
Authorities believe that factor played a part in Hawkins' death, along with a cocktail of drugs found in his system which included heroin, according to a report in a major Colombian newspaper.
"The Foo Fighters family is devastated by the tragic and untimely loss of our beloved Taylor Hawkins," the band said in a statement on social media over the weekend.
"His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live on with all of us forever. Our hearts go out to his wife, children, and family, and we ask that their privacy be treated with the utmost respect in this unimaginably difficult time."
