Demi Moore: Sobriety Lets Me Experience Life

Actress Demi Moore is able to fully experience life now that she’s sober, according to the cover story of the October issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

In the interview, she revealed that she has struggled with substance abuse for a long time, first getting sober in her 20s, but found herself struggling again in her 40s. In 2012, a woman called EMS on behalf of Moore, who seemed to be having a seizure after smoking an unknown substance.

“She smoked… something… It's not marijuana but it's similar to incense,” the panicked woman said in the 911 call.

Now, in her 50s, she is back on the sober train.

“In retrospect, what I realized is that when I opened the door [again], it was just giving my power away,” Moore explained. “I guess I would think of it like this: It was really important to me to have natural childbirth because I didn't want to miss a moment. And with that I experienced pain," she added. "So part of being sober is, I don't want to miss a moment of life, of that texture, even if that means being in—some pain.”

Childhood Trauma

Moore is set to release her memoir, Inside Out, soon. In it, she writes about her traumatizing experiences growing up with her mother who struggled with her own substance abuse problems. In the book, Moore recounted a time in which she was forced into a position where she had to revive her own mother after an overdose.

“The next thing I remember is using my fingers, the small fingers of a child, to dig the pills my mother had tried to swallow out of her mouth while my father held it open and told me what to do,” Moore wrote. “Something very deep inside me shifted then, and it never shifted back. My childhood was over.”

Breaking The Cycle

Now sober, she credits her three children, Rumer, Scout and Tallulah, and their father, ex-husband Bruce Willis, for helping her get her head on straight.

“My daughters offered me an opportunity to start to change the generational pattern. To be able to break the cycles,” she revealed.

Last year, she spoke at a Women’s Recovery House event where she was being honored.

“Early in my career, I was spiraling down a path of real self-destruction, and no matter what successes I had, I just never felt good enough. I had absolutely no value for myself,” she said.

“And this self-destructive path, it very quickly brought me to a real crisis point… Two people, who I barely knew, stepped up… and they presented me with an opportunity—that was more like an ultimatum—unless I was dead, that I better show up.”