Arianna Huffington appeared with her daughter, Christina, on the Today show Wednesday as the 24-year-old opened up about getting sober after her seven-year, "un-glamorous" addiction to cocaine.
"It was very much me, by myself, in my apartment, using drugs all day, from morning to night," said the media mogul's eldest, describing her experience as "absolutely un-glamorous."
"There was nothing fun about it. I wasn't at fun parties. I was really depressed. I was scared, I was anxious, and I sort of just felt isolated and alone and thought I'd never get out of it," she told Savannah Guthrie.
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Christina, who did her first line of cocaine at age 16, details her downward spiral into addiction and path to sobriety in the September issue of Glamour magazine. On Today, with her mother by her side, she said of getting high: "All of a sudden, with one line, I was on top of the world."
She kept her continued drug use a secret from her family until March of last year, while, as a student at Yale University, she found herself in the emergency room following an all-nighter in which she did cocaine, smoked pot and ran barefoot on the street, having trouble breathing.
A year sober, Christina said she's regained "self esteem" and "self worth," adding: "I have been really blessed, and that’s part of the reason I struggled coming forward. What I want to show is that addiction can strike, no matter what."
Said Arianna: "Millions of young people in their teens and 20s struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. If Christina’s story can prevent one parent watching now from getting the call that I got, 'Mommy, I can't breathe,' and help one young or young man come out, reach out for help and know you can turn your life around, then it will have been worth it."
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