Drew Barrymore has opened up about her first interactions with alcohol and drugs, both of which took place when she was just a child.
In a new and intimate interview with Vulture, the 48-year-old actress-turned-talk-show-host revealed details about her personal life, defining moments in her childhood that have come to shape her adult life.
Barrymore disclosed that her mom, Ildiko Jaid Barrymore, who was also her manager, seemingly treated her as a "friend" or "client" and would take her "industry parties" and "nightclubs" where she would end up indulging in things that no child should ever be exposed to, including alcohol and drugs such as cocaine.
"She had her first glass of Champagne at the wrap party for Firestarter when she was eight," reported the outlet referring to her 1990 memoir, Little Girl Lost. "A year later, she had her first beer at Rob Lowe’s 20th birthday party and made out with his 12-year-old stepbrother. She started doing coke when she was 12 and loved how it allowed her to 'soar above [her] depression and sadness.'"
Barrymore was then forced to go to rehab for approximately a year and a half at the age of 13 to get treatment for her addiction.
Elsewhere in the interview she also opened up about the strained relationship she had with her parents, but more particularly with her father who she recalled was an "abusive drunk."
Barrymore revealed to the outlet that her first memory of him was from when she was three years old.
She remembered the time he "stormed in and tossed her into a wall." He would also "do things like hold her hand over a candle and say that pain is in the imagination. He would usually reappear when he needed money. He became an itinerant eccentric, houseless and shoeless, using lemons and olive oil to bathe."
"Talk about someone who was not a careerist. He was like, 'I will burn this f**king dynasty to the ground,'" she said referring to the legacy that her grandfather John Barrymore, who was considered "one of the greatest interpreters of Shakespeare" of his time left behind.
Now, this isn't the first time Barrymore has spoken about her childhood.
The 50 First Dates alum has always been pretty candid about the struggles she faced with substance abuse in her childhood.
In an interview with the Guardian back in 2015, she described herself as a "party girl" adding that she went out with her mom and her mom's friends multiple times a week.
"By the age of 12, she had already been in rehab and was supporting Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No campaign," the outlet reported. "She fell off the wagon again, and at 13 found herself beginning an 18-month stint in hospital, where she was treated for alcohol and drug addiction."
When asked whether her 14-year-old self would have imagined being able to tell such a positive life story at 40, she responded: "Half no, in that I was so scared of not knowing where I was going. I really had a fear that I was going to die at 25. And half yes, because no matter how dark shit got, I always had a sense that there should be goodness. I never went all the way into darkness.
"There were so many things I could have done that would have pushed me over the edge and I just knew not to go there," she said.
The actress also added that this was one of the "lowest" moments for her.
Thankfully though, she's managed to regain control of her life.
"I’m gonna say something for the first time in a long time – I have not had a drink of alcohol in two-and-a-half years," she told CBS This Morning in 2021. "It was something that I realized just did not serve me and my life."
"Now it’s been long enough where I’m in a lifestyle that I know is really working on a high road for my little journey, and there’s so much peace finally being had where there were demons," she added.
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