Drake & Josh star Josh Peck has opened up about his battle with drugs and alcohol.
The 35-year-old actor said he used substances to "numb his feelings" and to quiet the insecurities he'd had since he was a child.
Josh, who weighed 21 stone at his heaviest, lost the weight after going on a diet and getting a personal trainer but said the weight loss didn't change his mindset.
"It became clear that once I lost the weight that I was the same head in a new body," he told People.
He admitted that he got to a point where he "knew that nothing on the outside world would make me feel whole".
Speaking about his addictions, he described his drug binges as a "buffet".
“It was really a buffet,” he recalled. “I had this illusion of becoming more confident and attractive when I was partaking. I was trying to quiet that voice that woke me up every morning and told me I wasn’t enough.”
Josh said he started using drugs like cocaine to deal with his insecurities that came from constant body shaming as a child.
He starred alongside his pal Drake Bell, 35, in the Nickelodeon comedy.
As he battled his demons he earned a reputation in Hollywood for being "unstable and erratic."
Admitting that he got to a point where he was scared of "losing it", he signed up to a treatment programme.
After he "broke down the false identity" that he had built for himself over the years, he was able to get sober in 2008.
After staying sober and clean from drugs, Josh married Paige O'Brien in 2017 and the pair have a son called Max Milo, three.
Josh has also written a memoir where he reflects on the twists and turns of his life called Happy People Are Annoying.
His face is featured on the front cover of the bright yellow book which is expected to be released on March 15.
Josh is set to talk about his life as a child star and the troubles he faced on the Dear Media podcast, We Met At Acme on March 13.
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Looking at how his life is now, in comparison to the years he was plagued by insecurity and addiction, he said: "I feel like everything in my life set me up to find this chapter of health, peace and contentment.”
Josh starred as Josh Nichols in Drake & Josh from 2004 to 2007.
As well as making three Drake & Josh TV movies, he was also the voice of Eddie, one of the possum brothers in Ice Age.
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