The singer reflects on her early use of drugs and alcohol during an interview on the 'Call Her Daddy' podcast.
Demi Lovato was barely a teen when she started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. The 30-year-old singer got candid about her past during an interview with Alexandra Cooper for the Wednesday episode of the "Call Her Daddy" podcast, and she didn't hold back.
"I started experimenting for the first time when I was 12, or 13," Lovato recalled, before noting that it was due to an injury that she was introduced to pills. "I got into a car accident and they prescribed me opiates. My mom didn't think she would have to lock up the opiates from her 13-year-old daughter but, like, I was already drinking at that point."
"I had been bullied and was looking for an escape," Lovato added. "When my mom saw how many of the pills had been disappeared and how fast they did, she took them away and locked them up."
Lovato went on to share that she "drank a lot" in her "teenage years," and before trying drugs like cocaine, she'd steal her mom's Xanax medication. "At 17, it was the first time I tried coke and, like, loved it too much and then kind of bled into me going to treatment right after I turned 18," she said.
As for the start of her drinking, the Disney alum recalled being alone the first time she tried alcohol, which she says "should have been a major red flag."
"I, like, stole beer from my dad in the fridge, my stepdad," she recalled. "I took it to my room and drank like four beers just to see what it was like to feel drunk. I was, like, a little 90-pound girl, so that was a lot."
Lovato shared that for a while she was "really good at convincing people" that she was only using pills to help her sleep and that she was "making up excuses," but when it got to a point that it was clear she needed help, everyone on her team was "really supportive" because it had been "a long time coming."
After Lovato suffered a near-fatal overdose in 2018, she completed a 90-day stint in rehab after being released from the hospital. In March 2021, she said during her YouTube docuseries, Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil, that she had been "smoking weed and drinking in moderation." She called this being "California sober," but months later she revealed that she was no longer living that way.
"I no longer support my 'California sober' ways," Lovato wrote on her Instagram Story in December 2021. "Sober sober is the only way to be."
Earlier this year, a source told ET that Lovato "completed a rehab stint in Utah recently and is now back in Los Angeles," adding that she "wanted to get back on track and recently swore off being 'California sober.'"
"Demi’s friends and family were there to support them during their time in rehab," the source said. "They wanted to start the year off on a good path, and this stay helped them with this."
Nowadays, Lovato says she's "really figured out" who she is. "I say that a lot, every time I get older, but it’s like I’ve never felt so sure of myself and grounded," she told ET earlier this month.
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