Davinia Taylor has compared her battle with alcohol to “being taken over by a parasite”.
The former Hollyoaks star has celebrated a decade of being sober, having battled both alcoholism and depression, but said she now does not even enjoy talking to drunk people.
She told Hello! magazine: “I was in complete denial.
“I thought if everyone just left me alone and I could have a drink, I would be fine.
“There wasn’t an ‘Aha’ moment. It was much tougher than that.
“The first 10 months were harder than the past 10 years. Every single cell in my body was telling me to take a drink.
“It was like being taken over by a parasite and the only thing you can do about it was to go cold turkey.”
Taylor, who is now a mother of four and has been in a relationship with builder Matthew Leyden for eight years, used to be a frequent tabloid fixture as part of the so-called “Primrose Hill set” in the early 2000s, which included Kate Moss, Sadie Frost, Jude Law, Jonny Lee Miller and Meg Matthews.
She said: “Most of that group were ‘going-out’ friendships.
“We have all moved on – although I am still very good friends with Meg and Sadie.
“I don’t particularly like going out much any more. I don’t enjoy having conversations with drunk people – I don’t find it funny or interesting, so I tend to turn up, do what I have to do and then go home.”
Taylor said she is now committed to a daily diet of organic food and gym sessions and attributes her toned physique to “biohacking”.
She said: “It means using your personal biology to hack into your best self so you can optimise how you sleep, how you think and how you perform physically and mentally.
“It has been a brilliant journey for me in understanding my past, how I became alcoholic and how I can avoid getting back into that cycle.”
The full interview is in Hello, out now.