Demi Moore opened up about her struggle with the demon of substance addiction while receiving an award in Los Angeles, saying that she went down an arduous path of self-destruction, and for the longest time felt "she wasn't good enough."
The actress was honored on Saturday at Beverly Hilton Hotel with the Woman of the Year Award by Los Angeles-based women’s recovery center and sober living program Peggy Albrecht Friendly House.
Speaking to the audience while receiving the award, Moore claimed that she had very little regard for herself, as she would often seek ways to destroy herself.
She said, "I was spiraling down a path of real self-destruction and no matter what success I had I just never felt good enough,” She further elaborated on the fact that she had succumbed to self-loathing at a point.
"I had absolutely no value for myself and this self-destructive path, it really quickly brought me to a real crisis point. It wasn’t clear at the time, maybe it was divine intervention, but two people who I barely knew stepped up and took a stand for me and presented me with an opportunity, which I guess was more like an ultimatum — unless I was dead, I better show up.”
“Early in my career, I was spiraling down a path of real self destruction and no matter what success I had I just never felt good enough”—#DemiMoore talking about her recovery while being honored by @friendlyhouse as “Woman of the Year”
At the luncheon, hosted by Amber Valetta, Moore confessed that facing her demons gave her the chance to turn her life around, as she mentioned, "It gave me a chance to redirect the course of my life before I destroyed everything. Clearly, they saw more in me than I saw in myself and I’m so grateful because without that opportunity, without their belief in me, I wouldn’t be standing here today.”
Moore who had succumbed to addiction in the wake of her split with ex-husband, Ashton Kutcher, concluded by saying, "Life is certainly not a straight line and I think everybody here has dealt with not feeling good enough at some point in their lives. I know that in a moment of the great struggle for me, I reached out to a wise teacher and I expressed my fear that I wasn’t good enough and she said, ‘You will never be good enough but you can know that value of your worth. Put down the measuring stick."
Moore's problem with drugs has been quite a concern for her in her career, even when she was working with director Joel Schumacher for the 1985 film, 'St. Elmo's Fire'. Upon discovering her problem with addiction, Schumacher had apparently threatened to fire her from the set. In 2012, Moore was hospitalized after suffering an epileptic seizure from alleged drug use.
However, none of it has kept Moore from becoming who she is, as the actor received the award at the event which also included awards for interventionist Dr. Louise Stanger, legendary Soul Cycle instructor Angela Davis and Barbara Bach Starkey and her sister Marjorie Bach Walsh.