Actor Columbus Short, who starred as Harrison Wright on ABC’s political drama Scandal, recently admitted that an addiction to drugs led to his own undoing.

Short, 32, used cocaine and alcohol to deal with the “heavy-duty stuff” in his life, and when his good friend and fellow actor Lee Thompson Young committed suicide last year, he began a downward spiral.

“I was using unhealthy ways to kind of self-medicate and deal with a lot of heavy-duty stuff in my life,” Short said. “I was doing cocaine and drinking a lot, and trying to balance a 16-hour work schedule a day, and a family, and, I just lost myself back then.”

In order to get sober, Short moved away from vice-laden Hollywood to Atlanta, Georgia, where he turned his focus away from drugs and towards music.

“I had to move, and my therapy really was my album. Working on my album changed my life," said Short. “Music changes things, and that is a fact. And, you know, writing it out. And I have a lot of crappy songs that I wrote, that are just me ranting, and then I have great [one], and I put together a great EP with the team, [and] that’s how I got through this.”

Short says he’s finally ready to get back into acting and looks forward to returning to his Scandal family.