90s supermodel Amber Valletta has revealed she faced a struggle with addiction.
The 40-year-old opened up to wellness website MindBodyGreen.com about her battle with drugs and alcohol, saying simply: “I suffer from a disease called addiction.”
“I’ve had it for as long as I can remember,” the former supermodel continued.
Valletta tragically revealed that she had been looking for ways to ‘get high’ since was eight-years-old, because she was “uncomfortable being a human being.”
“I sniffed markers, I sniffed glue, fingernail polish, anything that could give me a buzz,” she says during the video. “Once you feed the monster, there’s a switch and it takes hold.”
At the peak of her career, when she was only 22, she was reportedly abusing both cocaine and alcohol.
“I had a multi-million dollar deal and I showed up the first day of the campaign high and drunk. I didn’t care,” she revealed.
Valletta also thinks that being a part of the modelling industry may have contributed to her struggle with addiction, although she says she may be genetically predisposed to it. “I was in a business that drugs and alcohol were widely acceptable and they were given to me.”
But she also asserts. “I am not a victim … I don’t blame anything that happened to me that was negative.”
When she turned 25, Valletta finally sought help because she says she “didn’t want to die.”
“I had to be willing to lift the veil off the shame and say, ‘I’m an addict, I can’t do this alone, I don’t want to do this alone, I don’t feel comfortable, can you help me?’”
The model has now been sober for 15 years, but says that she is still an addict.
“I know for certain that I am an addict through and through and that even if I’d had this blessed and amazing childhood I’d still want to get higher, I’d still want to get out of myself.”
If you are worried that yourself or a family member might have a drinking problem, you can find help at Alcoholics Anonymous. You can call the national AA hotline at 1300 22 22 22.
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