"Dancing with the Stars" pro Sharna Burgess has opened up about her past drug addiction, and the moment she realized it was time to turn her life around.
In a new episode of iHeartPodcast "Old-ish" with fiancé Brian Austin Green and Randy Spelling, the 38-year-old admitted she was 15 years old when she began experimenting with drugs. Three years later, at 17, Burgess said she realized she didn't want to continue on her destructive path.
“This was at the end of probably being awake for three days. We were sitting at the backyard of someone's house, and a crack pipe was being passed around with meth in it and we were all taking hits of it," she said.
Burgess explained that at that point, she "had been smoking meth now for a little while. Not every day, but just on and off because it was new."
At the time, she wasn't "hooked" on the substance. However, "it was definitely at that time a party drug going around all the time, and I was partying pretty much, three to four days a week."
Then she had a "moment of clarity."
"I was sitting there watching this pipe pass around and the universe, God — whoever you call it — gave me this moment and I saw everybody sitting opposite me with complete clarity of what my future looked like," she said.
"Here I was 17 years old, high awake for three days, watching 20-somethings and maybe even young 30-somethings passing around this crack pipe just waiting to get a little bit more out of it," she continued.
"I realized that I had come from being an Australian champion ballroom dancer, I represented my country at the World Championships. I was an athlete, the best in the country at the time, and because of a knee injury I fell off," she said. "But I realized how far I'd [fallen] and how much I needed to get back to that person, that this was not what I was meant for."
Burgess recalled "a moment on the floor" when she was on her knees saying to herself, "I am here for a reason. I am here for more."
"And I got given that blessing of a moment to see where I was at. And that was where it all changed for me and I understood. I need dance back in my life," she said.
Asked whether there were "little signs" to seek treatment for her addiction, Burgess admitted to having some "scary moments."
"There was a moment at a rave when I was incredibly dehydrated and had taken too many things and started frothing and foaming at the mouth a little bit because I was so dehydrated," she recalled.
While being treated by paramedics, Burgess remembered thinking that "you sober up very quickly when you're in fear of your life like that."
But, "this still wasn't enough for me to stop" because there were "so many triggers that sent me back into it," which included her relationship with her father and her home life.
"I was very, very uncomfortable in my reality, so I would escape to this place of euphoria. And eventually the things I would take to get to that place of euphoria weren't strong enough or enough and I do more and have more and more often. And that was the slippery slope for me," she added.
"I would have been given these moments but I don't think I was ready to hear them, see them or listen to them because I was so uncomfortable in my space without that vice. I didn't consider that it could be different or better," she explained, noting that it was only when she realized she was missing dancing that she understood what was needed in order to achieve sobriety.
"I lost my way of working through things even though I didn't know that at the time," she said. "I think the strength [to get sober] came from realizing I needed to get back into that."
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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