Demi Lovato calls herself an "open book," but it took awhile for her to get to that point, as she explains in a revealing new interview about her drug and alcohol addictions, self-harming and eating disorder. She's got a new outlook on life now that she's sober and, as always, Demi's thoughts are eye opening and inspiring for her fans.
Demi tells the
Daily Mail's
You magazine that a "weight has been lifted" now that she is clean and sober. She explained: "When you are no longer hiding anything, you don't worry about what is going to get out. I don't care who knows about my life, and now that I am an open book a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders."
She also explained how she first started abusing pain pills after they were prescribed for a car accident injury, noting: "I liked the feeling they gave me - they sort of numbed everything - and I also liked the sneakiness of taking extra pills out of my mom's bag without her knowing."
It was a downward spiral from there, however, as she said: "Everything skyrocketed, which was awesome, but the negative side was that I thought, 'Right, I am working like an adult so I should be able to party like an adult.'"
The bigger problem was the sense of entitlement she felt, which made it hard for her parents to intervene: "I was making a bunch of money and when my parents would get on to me for drinking and staying out, I would say, 'I pay the bills, so what are you going to do?'"
Demi added, "I was riding this wave of entitlement and superiority and they were in an impossible position because there's no manual that explains how to deal with the sort of teenager I was." Her wake-up call came when Demi's mom said she wouldn't be able to see her sister if she didn't get help.
She explained, "Mom saying that made me realize that my life was a shambles and, although I had a lot of success, I was also very alone and miserable. I love Madison and one of the main reasons I wanted to get better was because I didn't want to be apart from her."