Davina McCall has spoken about her struggle with drug addiction and her journey to sobriety. The presenter and campaigner spoke openly about her battle on Steven Bartlett's podcast, Diary of a CEO.
In a clip shared on the BBC's TikTok account, the presenter, who famously presented The Big Brother said she realised, “I'm not just addicted to heroin, heroin's not my problem, it's all drugs. I've got to stop.”
McCall was 24 years-old when she decided to get clean. She told podcast host Bartlett, “My best friend said she was going to take me to Santana…she got me into her car. And I got in the car and she shut the doors and she said, 'I'm actually not going to take you to Santana. I need to tell you some things.'"
“She said, 'I know that you've been lying to me,'” Although Davina recounts that she'd been off heroin for a month at that point as she'd been away, she says, “I had just come off the back of a 24 hour cocaine bender which is what made me realise heroin wasn't my problem, all drugs were my problem.”
She said, “I couldn't take cocaine normally either, I couldn't just take it for four hours and then go to bed. I had to take it for 24 hours, I was an animal.”
“My friend said, ‘We all know you been lying to us, all your friends, and you are the topic of conversation at every dinner party I go to.’"
Davina says, “The shame starts piling on. I started to feel a little bit, ‘well fuck you’ to her. This is virtually my only friend I've got left"
She says she slammed the door, burst into tears and went straight to bed.
At the time Davina was living in a tiny room at her parents house, sleeping on a camp bed with no money to her name.
She then says, “An hour later I wake up and think, 'I'm going to phone someone for help. I'm fucked. I can't do this anymore.'"
She adds: “I phoned this woman who I knew was clean and it was if she was expecting my call. She goes ‘Oh hi Davina’. And i was like, ‘I was just wondering if you were going to a meeting tomorrow?’ She's like 'Yeah yeah, I'm going at six o clock..come meet me there. Come along, if you want.'”
Davina says, “She didn't ask me what was going on, she didn't ask, which was exactly right.”
Davina says she visited her friend the next day at work and told her, “I'm not expecting you to believe me and I know I'm going to have to prove myself but I just wanted to let you know that I want to change and I want to do something about it and I'm going to a meeting tonight.”
Davina says she went to a meeting that night and “spent the next two weeks going to meetings every day and for 90 days after, sobbing, just sobbing in every meeting, of surrender."
She says “NA (Narcotics Anonymous) taught me how to live and how to change and how to heal myself, I owe NA my life, literally. But it also gave me my career.”
Davina says having tried unsuccessfully to get a job at MTV “while I was using, all those years, the time they say come in for an interview…after three years of trying, I was six months clean. And I didn't mess it up."
She says, “You know, I turned up on time…early, which was new for me. I turned up clean and smelling like flowers, with a smile on my face and colour in my cheeks.”
If you or anyone you know is suffering from drug addiction, head to Narcotics Anonymous UK for more information on what help is available ukna.org. For more honest help and advice about drugs and drug addiction, head to talktofrank.com. For more up-to-date information on drugs and alcohol, see drugwise.org.uk.
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