Eliza Dushku: 'I was a drug addict for so many years'

Actress Eliza Dushku came clean about her years-long secret drug addiction battle to thousands of students on Tuesday (07Mar17).

The 36-year-old Bring It On star made the shocking revelation during a speech she delivered at the New Hampshire Youth Summit on Opioid Awareness held in Manchester, New Hampshire.

“Something a lot of people don’t know about me is that I am an alcoholic and I was a drug addict for a lot of years,” Eliza confessed in her moving address to the large crowd. “You hear people say ‘I am that’ because I am that and I’m always going to be that but the difference between me and an alcoholic or a drug addict that still drinks and does drugs is that I am sober.”

Eliza admitted although she was a huge fan of getting drunk years ago, as time passed her habits began to destroy not only her life, but the lives of friends and relatives.

“I loved the first time I took a drug because I loved how it made me feel, I loved the way it made me not feel and I didn’t have to feel," she recalled. "It was fun and I loved it until it wasn’t. Drugs didn’t love me, they didn’t love my family. They definitely didn’t love my friends that died, I have a lot of friends that are dead.”

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer star was invited to deliver her speech at the summit by actor Mark Wahlberg's brother Jim on behalf of the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation, which funded the event.