Davina McCall was rushed to hospital following a drugs overdose in her 20s.
The 52-year-old presenter – who has spoken openly about her battle with heroin addiction in the past – knew she needed to "get clean or die" when she reached her lowest point after turning to narcotics to try to "escape" from herself.
Speaking to a group of teenage girls at the launch of The Sun on Sunday newspaper’s International Women’s Day event, she said: "Drugs took me to a very, very, very dark place and, one night, I overdosed.
"It was very frightening as it was a very gradual overdose. I’d had a cocktail of drugs, because I didn’t want to feel normal.
"I was constantly trying to escape myself — I was like a piece of fruit rotting from the inside.
"So then I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just take a valium’, and the next thing I knew I woke up in hospital. At my lowest point, when I was filled with self hatred, it was literally a case of ‘get clean, or die’."
After her overdose, Davina turned to Narcotics Anonymous meetings – which she still occasionally attends – and quit drugs within a year, which helped her turn her life around.
She said: "I was the person that people would have crossed the street to avoid. I started with cannabis and went on to become a heroin addict.
"It ended up taking me to the darkest, darkest place. I empowered myself to change my situation, I made a conscious decision I could change me. And because I got clean I got the job I’d dreamed of and that changed my life forever."
The former ‘Big Brother’ presenter learned a lot of valuable "lessons" from the meetings.
She continued: "When I went to these meetings I thought, ‘It’s get clean or die’.
"In any situation that I go into now, I use the lessons I learned at those meetings
"I learned how to work hard… at first on my recovery but later I took with me lessons I’d learned and channelled them into my work.
"And here I am talking to people and you might want to learn something from what I’ve said."
Davina McCall recalls drug overdose
