Paul Nicholls fears he'll die if he suffers an addiction relapse.
Paul Nicholls
The former 'EastEnders' actor admits his cocaine addiction peaked last year and he knows a relapse could have tragic consequenes.
Paul - who played Joe Wicks in the BBC soap - explained: "I’ve had addiction issues before and relapsed last year.
"The rabbit hole I went down led to places that I never thought I’d end up in - in flats with people that I didn’t know.
"I was taking lots of dihydrocodeine, a very strong opiate pain killer and on top of that, cocaine . . . every time I relapsed cocaine is always present.
"At certain points I’d be gone for three or four days and not sleep at all. I stopped caring, I pressed the ‘f*** it’ button.
"The last time I ended up in a flat with people smoking stuff, doing this and doing that.
"They recognised me. I was looking around and I thought, ‘If I don’t stop, I will die’.
"I’ve still got so much shame around this stuff."
Over recent months, Paul has been attending Narcotics Anonymous and is now desperate to stay clean.
The actor fears suffering a relapse because he knows it'll impair his judgement.
He told The Sun on Sunday newspaper: "That point when you let yourself relapse is called ‘the f*** it button’. I pressed it.
"Once I take any substance, judgement goes out the window.
"In the places I ended up, people knew who I was. I know there’s people out there with pictures and that’s why I’m kind of saying all this stuff.
"It was horrendous. I didn’t care about myself. I wasn’t well at all.
"I had no one around me. I was on my own. I had my own place at that point in Belsize Park. After benders, I just crawled back and recovered. There’s still a lot of shame.
"When you’re clean, you remember things and you go, ’Oh, God. Oh good God, why? What was I doing? Why was I there?'"
“I mean, when you’re on substances and running around and not caring about yourself, you don’t feel anything."