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Amber Valletta Reveals She's a 'Raging Addict'
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Amber Valletta is best known for her modeling career and role as Lydia Davis in ABC drama Revenge, but she’s now making headlines for revealing that she’s been sober over 15 years.
Describing herself as a “raging addict,” Valletta admitted in a new interview with mindbodygreen.com that she suffers “from the disease of addiction." Cocaine and alcohol were her primary drugs of choice, but she had been searching for ways to get high since the age of 8.
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“[I was] uncomfortable being a human being,” she said. “I sniffed markers, I sniffed glue, fingernail polish, anything that could give me a buzz.”
The peak of her modeling career at age 22 coincided with the peak of her addiction, which she said was not coincidental. Valletta believes her drug habit was facilitated by being in a business where drugs “were widely accepted and they were given to me,” but also made it clear that she takes full responsibility for her behavior.
"I had a multimillion [dollar] deal and I showed up the first day to shoot this campaign high and drunk," she admits. "I didn't care and that's just to show you addiction takes you to the worst places."
Three years after that moment, the Oklahoma native acknowledged that she would likely die if she didn’t get help. With her new show Legends premiering on TNT next month, Valletta is hoping that the added visibility will provide a platform to share her story with others.
"I had to be willing to lift the veil off the shame and say, 'I'm an addict, I can't do this alone, I don't want to do this alone, I don't feel comfortable, can you help me?'” she said. "My hope is that someone, somewhere in this room, out of this room will hear something that will help them and perhaps get them out of the shadows and the darkness of addiction and bring them into the light."
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