Drew Carey says therapy has been a “game changer” in his life.
Drew Carey says therapy has been a ‘game changer’ in his life
‘The Price is Right’ host, 65, has battled depression for decades and was left devastated when his former partner Amie Harwick, 38, was strangled before falling to her death from a third floor balcony – with her ex-boyfriend Gareth Pursehouse, 45, sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in December for her February 2020 murder.
He has now told People about how he has also spent years addressing other troubles in his life through counselling and by turning to his closest friends.
Drew said: “Therapy's been a big game changer for me. I have a great therapist I can count on to talk to me, a couple of them, actually.
“And I have a crew of very close friends that I’m in. We always support each other. If anybody’s having a down time, we always are there for them.”
Drew’s mental health struggles started when he was in his teens, and he has said he faced such deep depression he tried to take his own life by swallowing sleeping pills aged 18 – and again at 23.
He said: “If I was with my friends joking around, I’d be maniacally happy. Really high highs, really low lows.”
Admitting he drank too much during his time at Kent State University, the comic and actor added: “I couldn't have picked a major. I couldn’t have told you with certainty what I wanted to do with my life that a lot of people can.
“There were people that just knew what they wanted to do, and they needed the college degree as a step along the way to their life’s path that they were sure of. “There were a lot of people like that, and I was not one of them.”
Drew added about how he still contemplates ending his life: “I have normal down days now, although I’ve got to be careful, because sometimes I do have suicidal thoughts if things get pretty bad.
“It gets pretty bad sometimes, but then I know that I have tools to get out of it.”