Video: Oscar De La Hoya On The Fight of His Life

After maintaining a strict silence about his rumored addictions, 38-year-old Oscar De La Hoya, the highest-grossing boxer of all time, has finally decided to come clean about about his addictions. In an interview with Teresa Rodriguez of the TV show Aqui y Ahora, the fighter admits that following long-term alcohol abuse, he hit rock bottom during the last two years. He says the drugs made him do "crazy, stupid" things and that his life dipped so dramatically that he even briefly considered suicide. Boxing's "Golden Boy," who won 10 world titles across six weight divisions during his 16-year career, says he's now been been clean for three months. Although he started using cocaine about two years ago, he relied mostly on prodigious amounts of alcohol, which "took me to a place where I felt safe...where I could just reach out and grab my mom." De La Hoya's mother, whom he described as "my rock and my best friend," died of breast cancer in 1990. In the interview, De La Hoya also admits being repeatedly unfaithful to his wife, Millie Corretjer, while he was using, but insists that he doesn't consider himself a full-fledged sex addict: "We're obviously not talking about a Tiger Woods here." "It's not an easy walk, it's a struggle," he says of his addictions. "To be an alcoholic is a 24/7 job and I just got tired of it." He says that he attends AA meetings but is leaving nothing to chance. When he recently left the Betty Ford clinic after a seven-week stay, De la Hoya paid up-front for another three weeks, just in case: "You've got to keep jabbing the monster, keeping him at distance," he says. "You never know when you're going to fall apart."