Former The Only Way Is Essex star James 'Arg' Argent has admitted that he has been a cocaine addict for the last seven years.
In a frank interview with The Sun, the 32-year-old revealed that he has had two almost-fatal overdoses in the last year alone but was saved by girlfriend Gemma Collins, who got the emergency services involved.
"I locked myself in my house and took drugs for three days straight on my own in the pitch black," he recalled of his first overdose in October. "I was at rock bottom. My heart was beating out of my chest, my nose was bleeding, I was shaking and my breathing was terrible.
"It wasn't glamorous or rock and roll at all. I wasn't taking drugs surrounded by hot girls at wild parties. My drug use was always by myself, isolated. I didn't want anyone near me. I wanted to be alone but it triggered horrific paranoia and psychosis.
"I'd lock the doors but I would think people were in my house and they were coming through the windows. I'd also feel like the police were going to turn up."
Arg went on to admit that his lowest point came last Christmas when he was home alone, still using and with only a kebab for dinner.
"My house was a state. I had no food in so the only food I could get was the one kebab shop open on Deliveroo," he said. "I'll never forget on Christmas Day sitting on my own eating a kebab for dinner. At that point I knew that was the moment where I said I need to get better and sort this out. You couldn't get any lower."
Arg has since spent 10 weeks at a specialist boot camp in Thailand, where he lost five stone and finally admitted that he is an addict.
Neil Wilkes
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