The 30-year-old singer revealed that she turned to alcohol and drugs before adolescence because she was ‘bullyed and was looking for an escape’.
The former child star revealed how she regularly stole alcohol from her stepfather when she was 17, whom she ‘loved dearly’.
Demi was sober for six years from the age of 20 to 26, but suffered a fatal overdose in 2018 that left her legally blind and suffered a heart attack and brain damage after three strokes in the hospital.
Demi, who is now on a journey of sobriety, opened up about her addiction issues on the Call Every Daddy podcast on Tuesday.
She said: ‘I first started experimenting when I was 12 or 13. I got into a car accident and he advised me to take opium.
‘I got into a car accident and they prescribed me opium. My mother didn’t think she’d have to wean off opium from her 13-year-old daughter, but I was already drinking at the time.
‘I was bullied and was looking for an escape.’
The former Disney star admitted that she would steal beer from her stepfather’s fridge and drink it ‘alone’, which should have been ‘a major red flag’.
She then turned to cocaine, saying: ‘At the age of 17, I tried Coke for the first time and, like, loved it a lot and then after I went for treatment at 18 I started bleeding. Gone.’
Now on her journey to sobriety, Demi recently spoke at Audacity’s Mix 104.1 in Boston, saying she ‘rarely thinks about substances’.
The singer said she had [her] people who wanted me to be quiet. And I don’t think I wanted that.’
Demi – who announced last year she was going ‘sober sober’ rather than ‘California sober’ – admitted she tried to make ‘bargaining choices’ on the road to recovery.
She explained: ‘I just tried smoking weed, I tried to do that… and I just realized none of it worked for me. What has come in my life is acceptance…
‘I’m in such an acknowledgment of my life that I really rarely think about substances, which is a beautiful thing and something I never thought would happen to me.’
In December 2021, the star announced that she would officially become ‘sober sober’ after her fatal drug overdose in 2018.
Having previously taken a “California sober” approach to recovering from past drug and alcohol abuse, the singer revealed that he will no longer drink alcohol or smoke marijuana in moderation.
Demi wrote on her Instagram story, ‘I no longer support my ‘California sober’ ways. ‘Sober is the only way to be sober.’
In March 2021, Demi revealed she was minutes away from death when in 2018 her assistant told her on CBS Sunday Morning that ‘if no one had found her, she wouldn’t be here’.
The traumatic overdose left him legally blind and with brain damage after suffering a heart attack and three strokes in the hospital.
Asked whether she was ‘totally sober’ by a producer on the 2021 YouTube documentary, Dancing With the Devil, Demi said she smoked weed and drank ‘in moderation’.
She said she struggled to come to terms with the idea that she would never be able to get ‘some relief’ from a substance again.
‘I’ve learned that closing the door on things makes me want to open the door even more,’ she explained.
‘I’ve learned that it doesn’t work for me to say, “I’m never going to do this again.”
‘I’ve really struggled with this. I know I’ve worked with stuff that’s about to kill me. But I wish I had some relief, maybe grass or something.
‘And telling myself that I can never drink or smoke marijuana makes me feel like it’s setting myself up for failure, because I’m such a black and white thinker.
‘I had it in my head for so many years that one drink was the equivalent of a crack pipe. So far I have been hesitant to state that I have been drinking weed and alcohol in moderation.
Demi admitted how and when she shares this information with the world for a variety of reasons – the first being that she didn’t want people to ‘criticize’ for the decision after being held up as a ‘poster child of moderation’ Do it. ,
“I also don’t want people to hear this and think they can just go out and try to smoke a drink or a joint because it’s not for everyone,” she continued.
‘Recovery is not a one-size-fits-all solution. And you shouldn’t be forced to calm down if you’re not ready. You shouldn’t be cool to other people. You have to do it for yourself.