Stacey Dash Reveals She First Tried Drugs Aged 8 As She Recounts Addiction

Stacey Dash has revealed that she first tried drugs when she was just 8 years old, as she opened up about her pill addiction in a new interview.

During an appearance on The Dr. Oz Show, which aired on Thursday, the actress, 54, revealed that her parents were drug addicts and that her mother gave her her first line of cocaine when she was 16 years old.

Looking back on her past, the former Fox News contributor also told host Dr. Mehmet Oz that she was molested at the age of 4.

"I didn't really remember until I was 17 when I tried to kill myself," Dash said of the trauma she endured, per E! News. "It was at that time that I remembered that that happened to me, and I had already been very angry. I was a very angry, angry teenager.

"I became angry at I'd say around the age of 10 or 11, which is when my mother finally left my father. Even though my home was unstable and my father was a heroin addict, I knew he loved me. He just couldn't beat it. He couldn't overcome the addiction."

After developing a drug addiction of her own that spanned her 20s, Dash shared that she eventually got sober.

However, the Clueless star also told Dr. Oz that she relapsed 20 years later when she was prescribed Vicodin to aid with painful fibroid cysts—spending an estimated $5,000 to $10,000 per month on the pills.

"I'm not blaming doctors at all because it was my choice to take more, you know?" Dash said during her interview. "It was my choice to take that extra one even though I wasn't in pain.

"I chose to do that because the Vicodin filled that hole inside of me. It filled that anger. It calmed that anger down. It slowed my brain down. It gave me the ease so that I could deal with life. That's how I became addicted. It's no one's fault but my own."

The New York native said that she was secretly "taking 18 to 20 pills a day" at one stage, which led to her subsequently losing "everything."

"That's what stopped me. I almost died," she went on. "My kidneys were so infected that my blood was septic, and my organs were shutting down. So, I got rushed to the hospital and I had to have a full blood transfusion and I was in there for three weeks. And by the grace and mercy of god, I lived."

However, the life-threatening scare didn't spark an immediate change, as Dash admitted that her drug abuse continued.

She said: "That again was when I thought, 'OK, Stacey, then give up. You can't do this life.' And I almost did something stupid. I didn't.

"I called my sister and I told her, 'Come over right now.' And then I called my attorney and I said, 'I need help.' And she sent me away. Within eight hours, there was an intervention guy at my house and I was on a plane to Utah to go to rehab... It wasn't until the last 10 days that I said, 'Oh, snap. I'm an addict.'"

Dash recently marked five years of sobriety, a time period that she told Dr. Oz has also led to her being a "better person."

"I'm clean, five years," she said. "And in this five years... the greatest blessing is that not only have I been able to be honest with myself and become a better person, I've been able to understand my parents and that they did love me and that they were doing the best they could and they were just sick. They were addicted."

Explaining her reasons for publicly sharing her story, Dash told Dr. Oz: "I feel like telling my story—letting people know that there is no shame in being an addict, there is no shame in getting help because that's what we need.

"And for people who are not addicts, I would ask them to please look at people with more compassion and empathy, understanding because they need help. They need help. They can't do it on their own."

On Wednesday, Dash took to Facebook to reveal that she would be "sharing my deepest, darkest secret" on The Dr. Oz Show.

"I thank the Lord for being able to say that I have grown more over the last 5 years than I have in my entire life," she added. "I am so blessed to be surrounded by people who have loved and supported me through my most challenging time. Thank you all!

"I encourage anyone who has a story they are scared of telling to share it with the world. You never know who will be able to relate to you and who it can help."

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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