By DOLLY BUSBY SHOWBUSINESS REPORTER IN QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
I'm A Celeb's Dean McCullough has battled with an alcohol addiction that left him in a 'really dark place' and celebrated four years of sobriety in September.
The BBC Radio 1 presenter admitted he quit drinking after abusing alcohol during the pandemic when he was drinking two bottles of wine and a bottle of vodka at the weekends.
"In the last 18 months I've had a whirlwind of experiences. I've bought my own home & felt every bit of stress around that. I've fallen in love with the wrong person and had to navigate the breakdown of that. I've had a shift at work and navigated all of that. Sadly I've had family members pass away and we've all had to process the deep pain of that."
'I wanted to stop boozing for a month to refocus my mind and take back control of what was a spiralling problem.
"I wanted to go for my dream job at Radio 1 but had absolutely no idea how that was going to happen but what would happen next would be remarkable. Everything aligned, I stayed sober for another month and then Radio 1 happened, my mind opened up and I felt like me."
The DJ revealed that during the Covid-19 lockdowns, his binge drinking had got out of control and his mental health had been severely affected.
"What was like a glass of wine of an evening after work turned into a bottle which turned into two bottles and then, some weekends, I was drinking like a bottle of vodka too. It wasn't until I was going to work on a Monday and I was looking at the bins and I was like, 'I didn't drink all that?' But I had, because there was no one else in the house."
"It was the pandemic, and I just got myself into a bad way and I was sort of thinking some really, really dark thoughts to myself. Anybody who's kind of struggled with mental health will know what it's like."
"I didn't plan it. I didn't think, 'This is my last drink. This is my last party.' I literally woke up on the first of September and I turned to my mate and said, 'This is it, like I'm going to stop drinking for a month. Just to see what happens.'
"There was no real pivotal moment. It wasn't a really horrendous hangover. I didn't go through a break-up."
I just saw the path in frontof meanditwasn'tnice.Itwasreallydarkanditwasverydestructive.