Lily Allen believes it is inevitable she would end up an addict.
The 'Not Fair' hitmaker has been sober for five years but as many of her earliest memories involve being around drugs and alcohol, she believes addiction "runs deep" within her genes and she'd always have end up out of control eventually.
She told The Times newspaper: “I think that addiction runs deep in my family, so self-medicating was going to be on the cards. For me, it didn’t really feel like an ‘if’, it was a ‘when’."
The 39-year-old star hit rock bottom after her marriage to Sam Cooper - the father of her children Ethel, 13, and 11-year-old Marnie - broke down in 2016 and she even considered trying heroin.
She admitted: “I’d sort of exhausted all of my options in terms of my outlets for acting out. I was engaging in pretty crazy sex stuff, drug stuff, alcohol. I would sit there in my bed and think, ‘Maybe now’s the time for heroin because nothing’s working any more.’ Luckily I didn’t get there, because I wouldn’t be here right now.”
And Lily's lowest point came when she turned up to Sam's house after he embarked on a new relationship.
She said: “I drank myself into oblivion. I went over to his house and started screaming at him, woke the kids up, you know, really distressed the children.
“They remember that. And they know that I was under the influence then, and that it’s important that Mummy avoids getting into those situations.”
The 'Miss Me' podcaster is pleased her sobriety has now given her kids safety.
She said: “My kids feel safe. That’s the main thing for me. I felt very unsafe in my childhood, and my kids feel safe.”
And the youngsters even "monitor" Lily's recovery, checking in to see if she has attended her regular Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, in person at weekends and online during the week.
She said: "They kind of monitor me. Ethel sometimes will be like, ‘Aren’t you going to one of your meetings?’ ‘I did one online this morning.’ ‘Are you sure?’ They know that it takes work, and that it’s something that I have to prioritise.”
But while Lily's husband of four years, David Harbour, has been sober for over 20 years, it isn't a topic they discuss.
She admitted: “We don’t really talk about it.”
