[imagesource: Instagram / Drew Barrymore]

As any addiction goes, watching the one you love continually harm themselves is incredibly difficult.

It was no different for best friends Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore, with Cameron saying Drew’s alcohol struggles were “difficult to watch”.

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times published on Sunday, the two Charlie’s Angels stars spoke about Drew’s journey, which was really tough for a really long time.

The actresses’ friendship budded when a then 14-year-old Barrymore worked at a coffee shop that Diaz visited, noted PEOPLE:

“I knew that if we all stuck with her and gave her the support she needed, she would find her way,” Diaz, 50, added, saying she has “absolute faith” in Barrymore’s recovery.

“You can’t even comprehend how hard it was to be her as a child, and then she shot out the other end with the ability to save herself,” she continued.

In an old The Guardian profile piece, Barrymore’s life was mapped out as a tragic movie pitch:

Imagine you were a Hollywood producer pitched the following idea: a baby girl born into an acting dynasty is put to work in a dog food commercial at the age of 11 months. At seven, she’s a film star pouring Baileys over her ice-cream, at 11 she develops a drink problem, at 12 she’s a drug addict, at 13 she cuts her wrists and is hospitalised, and at 14 she’s legally divorced from her parents. Of course, you wouldn’t make the movie. Too far-fetched. There’s only so much disbelief that one can willingly suspend.

Of course, that sounds like a harrowing way to start life, and three divorces later meant the drinking never really stopped, per Page Six:

Barrymore, 48, revealed in December 2021 that she had been sober for two and a half years. The following year, she confessed to drinking heavily to “numb the pain” of her 2016 divorce from her third husband, Will Kopelman.

“The drinking thing for me was a constant,” she told People in December 2022 of the fallout of their “excruciating” breakup.

In fact, her continuous drinking spiralled out of hand to such an extent that Barrymore’s therapist and renowned celebrity psychoanalyst Barry Michels quit:

“He just said, ‘I can’t do this anymore,'” Barrymore told the outlet. “It was really about my drinking. I said, ‘I get it. I’ve never respected you more. You see I’m not getting better. And I hope, one day, that I can earn your trust back.’ “

Michels ended their relationship after working with each other for a decade.

 

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The actress said that she even had an intervention from her friends, but the real turning point was when she was offered her own daytime talk show, The Drew Barrymore Show in 2019:

“I think the opportunity at a show like this really hit me,” she explained in the profile. “I was like, ‘I can’t handle this unless I’m in a really clear place.’

“I kept thinking, ‘I’ll master this. I’ll figure it out,’” the “E.T.” star continued. “And finally, I just realized: ‘You’ve never mastered this, and you never will.’”

At this point, she said she realised that she needed to root for herself the same way that she did for everyone else and felt finally capable of changing. So she reached out to Michels and the two started working together again:

“You seem to be so inspired by everybody else, but you treat yourself like s—,” Barrymore added. “When are you going to be enough for yourself?”

Although Drew does not totally describe herself as sober now, she reflected on the “dark place” she’s been to before.

Now she just wants to focus on being a mother to daughters Olive, 10, and Frankie, 8, which she calls “the role of my life”.

“I realized that just with me and my girls, I am truly happy,” she said. “I’d always thought I’d be on this hamster wheel for this whole life. But maybe there will be something different before the lights go out.”

She’s got this:

 

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[sources:pagesix&people]