Demi Lovato’s descent into heroin addiction that almost killed her in her words

Demi Lovato had been sober for six years when she relapsed and went onto even harder drugs that almost claimed her life.

The singer, 28, had become addicted to heroin after falling off the wagon and suffered an overdose that left her just five minutes from death.

If her assistant hadn’t found her when she did, Demi wouldn’t be here today and she says she feels grateful knowing that it wasn’t her time.

She suffered three strokes, a heart attack, had pneumonia, and her brain was damaged so much that she couldn’t see when she first came around.

The former Disney Channel star still has blind spots in her vision and can no longer drive.

In her powerful new documentary series Dancing With The Devil, Demi bravely details her descent into heroin addiction.

As she spoke candidly to the cameras, her interviewer told her: “I think people can understand picking up a joint, what gets harder for people to understand is the harder drugs. How does that even happen? How do you even do something like that?”

Demi explained: “So my cocktail before I got sober was coke and xanax [alprazolam] together, it was an upper and a downer, and I loved the combination.

“Once I’d relapsed the floodgates were open and within a couple weeks I called a drug dealer and I was like, ‘Do you have coke and xanax?’

“And he said, ‘no but I have crack and heroin’. And I was like, ‘I’ve always wanted to try it’.”

Her best friend Sirah added: “So it might be hard for people to understand but when people relapse, and this is pretty much the case always, people won’t even return to where they last used, they’ll return to a much harsher bottom.”

Demi continued: “I knew that what I had been looking for I hadn’t found yet, but what I had been looking for was not in the form of a drug.

“It was the spiritual growth that I’ve had over the past, I even wanna say like seven months, that spiritual growth is what I was looking for.”

Demi spoke about the effect her addiction had on those who love her.

She said: “It wasn’t fair actually to everyone who was around me during that time because when I did end up in the hospital they were kind of thrown through a loop too, like ‘woah, what the f**k have you been doing? What do you mean?’

“And that was my fault, that was me manipulating the people around me and making sure they never found out.”

Before her overdose, Demi had made the decision to not be sober anymore, and she spoke to her friends about it.

Dani Vitale, Demi’s former choreographer and creative director, said: “When she decided to not be sober anymore, I never had been in an experience with her where it was bizarre or out of control to the point where I was like this is not going to be good, this is not going to turn out well.

“And I think that’s where we all were being fooled.”

It was July 23, 2018 when Demi overdosed after a night of partying.

It had been Dani’s birthday and her friends and family were hanging out to celebrate.

Some of the group headed back to Demi’s house at around 12.30am and they danced together on the roof.

When Dani got tired and said she was going home, Demi begged her to stay over, but Dani said she had to go home and would call her in the morning so they could go hiking together.

Demi confessed: “I said I was going to bed but the reality was I had called my dealer over. What people don’t realise about that night for me was that I wasn’t, I didn’t just overdose, I also was taken advantage of.”

She added: “I’ve had my fair share of sexual trauma throughout childhood, teenage years, and when they found me I was naked, I was blue, I was literally left for dead after he took advantage of me.”

Speaking more about what happened that night, Demi said that she didn’t understand how she’d ended up in the hospital.

The star went on: “I am not saying that I have not used needles but that night I wasn’t injecting it, I was smoking it, which was another reason why I was so shocked when I woke up in the hospital because I was like, ‘no I’m not injecting it I can’t overdose on it’

“At the end of the day if you do too much of anything it’s going to kill you.

“I was like alright I need to get help. I did ask is it out there? My mom was like ‘yeah it’s out there everyone knows, a lot of people are worried, a lot of people are concerned and a lot of people love you, and that’s all you need to worry about right now’.”

“I’m really lucky to be alive. My doctors said that I had five to 10 more minutes and had my assistant not come in I wouldn’t be here today,” she added.

Demi also spoke about how the first time she got sober, it was because her parents told her that if she didn’t she couldn’t see her youngster sister Madison De La Garza.

In a cruel twist of fate, after her overdose, her brain was so damaged that she was left unable to see and when Madison was at her bedside holding her hand she couldn’t see her.

She cried as she said: “I know that’s not what they literally meant, I know they meant it metaphorically but it’s really ironic and in a weird way poetic that it ended up happening like that and me not actually seeing her.”

Madison, who starred in Desperate Housewives, told the cameras: “To be honest, when I found out that Demi wanting to be able to see me and keep a relationship with me was one of the reasons she went to treatment I didn’t believe it.

“That a sister relationship like that could stand in the way of Demi and her addictions, even for a moment.”

Things are all the more heartbreaking when you realise that Demi’s friends and family members found out about her overdose through people texting them to say they were sorry and praying for the star.

News had broken around the world before her mother, sisters and best friends even knew what had happened to her.

After getting to the hospital, her loved ones were told that the next 24 hours were critical and that Demi might not make it.

* The first two episodes of Dancing With The Devil are available to watch on YouTube now – episode three will land on March 30

Frank offers confidential advice about drugs and addiction (email [email protected], message 82111 or call 0300 123 6600) or the NHS has information about getting help.

Originally from https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/demi-lovatos-descent-heroin-addiction-23785516