TROUBLED Sarah Harding has revealed that she was addicted to sleeping pills as
well as alcohol.
The Girls Aloud singer, 30, said she endured a nightmare in rehab coming off
the potentially deadly combination of Zopiclone and booze.
She said: “I’ve been to hell and back.”
Sarah told all as she recovered from a violent bust-up with ex-lover Theo De
Vries.
She got hooked on booze as she desperately tried to live up to her wild-child
image.
And her four-year addiction to powerful sleeping pills was so strong it took THREE
WEEKS of intensive rehab to break the habit.
But unlike tragic singer Amy Winehouse, who died last July after a booze
binge, she dragged herself back from the brink. Sarah said: “I’m just glad I
survived.
“My drinking was out of control and I was addicted to sleeping pills. It was
an awful combination.
“Poor Amy — she lived round the corner from me in Camden.
“I remember everyone saying, ‘We have got to go and see her before she dies.’
“I thought that was so f****** morbid, but in a way everyone kind of expected
it.
“But when it happened it was unbelievable. It was awful.
“The mad thing was, she was coming off the alcohol — and I have been through
something similar.“
Sarah’s problems with booze began soon after she first tasted success with
Girls Aloud.
She discovered alcohol gave her the confidence to deal with her new-found
stardom.
Sarah added: “I never even enjoyed getting drunk before the band.
“The drinking was more to give me more confidence — especially when I was
going through my little wild-child stage. It was trying to maintain that
f****** image that got me in all this trouble.”
In 2006 Sarah was famously pictured by The Sun at the NME awards swigging back
whisky from the bottle. Soon she was drinking a bottle of wine just to kick
the day off — and finding it hard to sleep at night.
She began taking the prescription sleeping pill Zopiclone — and was soon
unable to stop.
Zopiclone is one of the many prescription drugs found in actor Heath Ledger’s
home after he died from an overdose of sleeping pills and anti-depressants.
When Sarah split from DJ fiance Tom Crane in September, her drinking only got
worse.
She said: “I was lonely out at my house in the countryside on my own. I was
isolated and depressed.
“I was drinking to deal with my emotions after the split.
“I just went mental. It took a couple of weeks to sink in and I went off the
rails really badly.”
Fortunately, Sarah was strong enough to realise she had a serious problem.
She said: “I knew I needed to go and get help.”
In October, Sarah checked herself into a rehab clinic in Cape Town, South
Africa.
She said: “Rehab was a depressing place to be with a lot of troubled people. I
came off Zopiclone. I started taking them four years ago and coming off them
was horrible.
“It took three weeks in rehab to start sleeping normally again.
“When I went to South Africa I went into detox and they literally put you on
Valium for three days.
“They literally comatose you in case you have a fit. Because if you come off
alcohol too quickly you have fits. I didn’t even know that.
“I wasn’t drinking as heavily as some of people in there, so luckily I got out
after three days to continue my treatment. Everything was OK with my body,
my liver was OK. I had all of that checked.”
But if rehab allowed Sarah to get a grip on pills and booze, it also sparked
her disastrous romance with Theo, 35.
She met the Dutch sunglasses salesman while he was having treatment for crack
cocaine and alcohol addiction. Sarah said: “They warn you not to fall in
love at rehab.
“But I’m the sort of person that if someone tells you not to do something, I
have to do it to find out for myself. I’m a stubborn little b******. I
thought we would be able to keep each other sober.
“But sure enough, everything they predicted came true. I have learned a
lesson, big time.”
After leaving rehab, Sarah set off with Theo for a Christmas skiing holiday in
Austria. On New Year’s Day police were called after the couple had a violent
bust-up in an Innsbruck hotel room.
Sarah told yesterday’s Sun that De Vries dragged her around by her hair, bit
her and smacked her head on the floor. He insists Sarah lashed out at him —
and says he did nothing but restrain her.
The singer is adamant about one thing — she is glad De Vries is now out of her
life.
She said what makes her most angry is she drank again while on the ill-fated
Austrian break with him. Sarah said: “It was 90 days I had done sober and
now I’m totally pissed off.
“I am annoyed at myself and I am annoyed at him, Theo. Even saying his name
now upsets me. I have been trying so, so hard to stay sober and get better.
“Since this happened I’ve been completely in shock.
“This has just messed me up again, because I’m sleeping terrible hours again.
My smoking has also got a lot worse.”
But Sarah is determined not to slip again — and is confident she can get her
life back on track.
She said: “I’ve done the bravest thing I had to do. I reined it in. I took
myself to rehab, because I knew it was getting out of control. It takes a
strong person to admit that. So I did it.
“I have so much to live for. I have my family and friends, my dogs, a film
coming out. I still want to do music and do something solo.
“Now I think it’s about being single and concentrating on myself and my career
and who knows what the future holds.
“I feel like I don’t want to be stuck with that drunken image. I go to
after-care for the extension to my rehab to keep me going. I am trying so
hard. I just want to be taken seriously.
“People have labelled me a wild child and that’s fair enough, I was.
“But that’s just not who I am, really. That picture of me with the bottle of
whisky — I look back and I’m embarrassed.
“At one point it was every night I was going out, but I reined myself in.”
Sarah now plans to ease herself back into socialising with friends — and
bandmates Cheryl Cole, Nicola Roberts, Kimberley Walsh and Nadine Coyle.
She said: “The girls have been lovely, they have all texted me.
“Nicola wanted to come over yesterday but since I’ve got back all I have
wanted to do is hide, stay at home and cook. I know it sounds stupid but I
find it therapeutic.
“I have started running with my dogs in the morning and walking them more.
“The main thing now is to get myself emotionally back on track.”