Demi Lovato opens up about her struggles from 2018 overdose, says she doesn’t Drive

Battling with addiction and withdrawal symptoms can uproot your entire life and while you may be able to get most of it together again, the horror of the long-lasting effects may never cease to impact you.

“I was left with brain damage, and I still deal with the effects of that today,” Lovato, 28, said during a Television Critics Association panel on Wednesday, February 17. She was promoting her new docuseries, Dancing With the Devil.

She added, “I don’t drive a car because I have blind spots in my vision. I also, for a long time, had a really hard time reading. My vision was so blurry.”

She talks about her addiction and recovery in anew YouTube Original series whose trailer dropped on Wednesday.  In the teaser, she explained that she had “three strokes” and a heart attack after the incident. Those health scares resulted in her having difficulties reading and focusing two years later.

“You know I dealt with a lot of the repercussions,” she told reporters during the Wednesday panel. “And I feel like they kind of are still there to remind me of what could happen if I ever, you know, get into a dark place.” She also expressed gratitude for not having to do her rehab more physically.

She goes on to explain,  “The rehabbing came from the emotional side and the therapeutic side, internally. And I did a lot of work after that.”

Lovato revealed that despite the hard road she had to recovery following the drug overdose, she “wouldn’t change a thing” about what transpired. “Everything had to happen in order for me to learn the lessons that I learned. It was a painful journey, and I look back and sometimes I get sad when I think of the pain that I had to endure to overcome what I have, but I don’t regret anything,” she said. “And I’m so proud of the person I am today. And I’m so proud that people get to see it in this documentary.”

In July 2018, Lovato was rushed to a hospital in Los Angeles after overdosing. The news came one month after the singer confirmed that she had relapsed, breaking six years of sobriety.  Lovato was released from the hospital in August of that year and spent three months in rehab.

In the trailer for the docuseries, Lovato revealed that her ability to survive the strokes and heart attack that followed her overdose brought a new perspective to her life.

“I’ve had a lot of lives, like my cat. You know, I’m on my ninth life,” she said in the teaser. “I’m ready to get back to doing what I love, which is making music.”

Lovato will also talk about her two-month engagement to Max Ehrich, which ended in September 2020, and where her sobriety journey stands now in the four-part series.

Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil premieres on YouTube Tuesday, March 23.