Drew Barrymore has opened up about her life-long battle with alcohol and sobriety in a candid interview with the Los Angeles Times.
The actress, who has been sober since 2019, admitted that she still lives in fear of being taken away to rehab.
“I will always have the ‘they’re coming, they’re coming’ mentality,” she told the outlet. “It’s the one thing that, unfortunately, I can’t shake. I’m pretty sure that this will all go away at any moment, I will get locked up again, and I will lose my job.”
Barrymore’s battles with alcohol began when she was still a child.
The former child actress, who became a household name at seven after starring in the 1982 film E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, had her first drink at just eight years old.
Around the same age, Barrymore began accompanying her mother, actress Jaid Barrymore, to the Studio 54 nightclub, where she was freely given alcohol and drugs.
By the time Barrymore was 12 years old, she was already in rehab.
Barrymore has previously opened up about these challenges in her two memoirs, Little Girl Lost and Wildflower.
And despite her difficult childhood, Barrymore has told the outlet that she’s not going to let those moments define her.
“There’s a choice to be had in how you see your circumstances, and I refuse to be stifled as a human being because of what I lived through as a kid,” Barrymore said.
“Don’t f—ing cloak me in this dark s–t. I don’t want to take on anyone else’s perception of what it should have been, because I don’t feel that way. I think that I’m incredibly rebellious because of it.”
Barrymore has also previously said that she believes her own childhood experiences has made her a better mother to her two daughters—Olive and Frankie Kopelman, who she shares with her ex-husband Will Kopelman.
These days, the actress hosts her own television program, The Drew Barrymore Show, which is currently available to stream on Ten Play.
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