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Cara Delevingne has opened up about deciding to check herself into rehab and committing to a 12-step program after realising she needed support.
The model, 30, sparked concern among some fans when she was photographed looking disheveled and distressed at the Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles in September last year, just after she returned from Burning Man festival.
Delevingne recalled her experiences before the photos had been taken during a recent interview with Vogue, saying: "There’s an element of feeling invincible when I’m on drugs. I put myself in danger in those moments because I don’t care about my life."
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Though she was pictured looking well just a few weeks later, Delevingne was ashamed and embarrassed at the circumstances under which she'd initially been photographed.
Speaking with Vogue, she explained she hadn't slept and 'was not okay' when the pictures were taken.
“It’s heartbreaking because I thought I was having fun, but at some point it was like, Okay, I don’t look well," Delevingne said. “You know, sometimes you need a reality check, so in a way those pictures were something to be grateful for.”
The images were a wake up call that she needed to step away from substances and alcohol use, and Delevingne knew she had friends who would rally around her, but at the time she 'wasn’t able to be honest' about what she was going through.
"I didn’t want to burden anyone," she admitted. "It was also like, What if people leave? If you ask any of my friends, they would say they’d never seen me cry.”
But from September, she knew she 'needed support'.
"I needed to start reaching out. And my old friends I’ve known since I was 13, they all came over and we started crying. They looked at me and said, ‘You deserve a chance to have joy'," Delevingne said.
The model has had 'interventions of a sort' in the past, but she 'wasn't ready' to face the issues. Towards the end of last year, she 'really was'.
Delevingne checked herself into rehab and committed to a 12-step program, admitting that 'the quick fix of healing' hadn't allowed her to 'get to the nitty-gritty, the deeper stuff'.
"This time I realised that 12-step treatment was the best thing, and it was about not being ashamed of that. The community made a huge difference. The opposite of addiction is connection, and I really found that in 12-step,” she said.
In addition to the 12-step meetings, Delevingne also attends weekly therapy sessions and has found psychodrama, a form of therapy in which a person dramatises a personal problem through role-play, to be especially helpful.
Please drink responsibly. If you want to discuss any issues relating to alcohol in confidence, contact Drinkline on 0300 123 1110, 9am–8pm weekdays and 11am–4pm weekends for advice and support.
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Emily Brown