Rehab saved my life as I was killing myself, says star Heaton
MICHELLE Heaton has said she was “killing” herself as she struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, it has been reported.
The TV personality and former Liberty X star told The Sun that going to rehab saved her life.
Heaton, 41, said she received the treatment thanks to “a joint effort from all my very dear friends who wanted me to live”.
Glamour model Katie Price was among those who encouraged her to go, Heaton told the newspaper.
She added: “What I was doing was a suicide mission. I never actually thought, ‘I want to kill myself’, but ultimately I was killing myself. I was crying out for help when I couldn’t actually ask for help. But when you’re an addict it feels like there’s no way out.”
Heaton said she was drinking “ludicrous” amounts of alcohol and “would be sick then... drink more”.
She added she hit “rock bottom with the alcohol” last September and had “excruciating pains”.
“My doctor could feel my liver sticking out because I was so thin,” she said. “I had scratch scars because liver issues make your skin itchy.”
She said she had to live with “pain and suffering” after a hysterectomy brought on an early menopause.
“Without the HRT [hormone replacement therapy] I’m just a walking nothing. But I felt I had to live with that pain and suffering myself because I made that choice. I wasn’t allowed to cry or grieve or ask for help and I didn’t have therapy.”
Heaton also said she “felt like a bad mother”, adding: “I’m so lucky I’ve got two beautiful children. They just want to see Mummy well and they want to have ‘ fun mummy’. They want me to play football with them, they want me to do their hair.
“It was those simple things that I wasn’t able to give them.
“I never put them at risk in a physical way, but they saw me being sick and were worried about Mummy.
“And my husband [Hugh Hanley] wondered if I’d be alive when he woke up.”