Demi Lovato has been more than open about her path to recovery from substance abuse, bipolar disorder, and bulimia. Since she was 18 years old, the former Disney star’s struggles have been under public scrutiny. For a time, it appeared that the star was clearly troubled, but these days, she radiates positivity. On Tuesday, she celebrated four years of sobriety.
The singer took to Twitter and wrote, “This last year I experienced so much life and too much death…but I made it through… Sober. #4Years #GodsWill.” She hyped up her anniversary last Saturday by tweeting, “I can’t believe I have 4 years on Tuesday… Anything is possible.”
Lovato has previously praised longtime boyfriend, That ‘70s Show actor Wilmer Valderrama, with being a huge influence in her recovery. “He’ll never take credit for a lot of my sobriety and my recovery, but I guarantee it, I wouldn’t be alive without him today,” she told HuffPost Live last May.
She also credited receiving a bipolar diagnosis early in her recovery. “I was dealing with bipolar depression and didn’t know what was wrong with me,” she told HuffPost Live. “Little did I know, there was a chemical imbalance in my brain. Because I didn’t tell people what I need, I ended up self-medicating and coping with very unhealthy behaviors.”
The 23-year-old admitted that during the height of her drug use, she would sneak drugs on airplanes and “couldn’t go 30 minutes to an hour without cocaine.” She also admitted to filling Sprite bottles with vodka in the morning and throwing up on the way back to her sober living residence in Los Angeles.
“I think at 19 years old, I had a moment where I was like, ‘Oh my God…that is alcoholic behavior,’” Lovato told Access Hollywood in December 2013. “It was, ‘Wow, I’m one of those people…I gotta get my shit together.’”