In an interview with "People" magazine, Drew Barrymore unpacked how much she actually took away from the separation from her husband at the time. She spoke of an "agonizing separation" that she "broke" mentally.

"It just freaked me out," the actress recalled, admitting that drinking helped her "numb the pain of the breakup" at the time. "It was just trying to feel good, and alcohol helped me with that," said the 47-year-old, who battled addiction as a child.

She tried to find a footing in drinking: "Drinking has been a constant for me like, 'You can't change. You're weak and unable to do what's best for you. You always think you can do it but it overwhelms you,'" she continued. But then Drew Barrymore woke up and changed her mindset, which she says is largely thanks to her daughters Olive, 10, and Frankie, 8. They gave her the motivation she needed for therapy and eventual recovery.

"After the family life I planned for my children fell through, it was a messy, painful, excruciating way to walk through the fire and come back to life," Barrymore said of her alcohol relapse.

Just a year ago, she made her abstinence public on CBS This Morning, telling viewers she'd been sober for two and a half years. In November of this year, the actress wrote about "liberating sobriety" in an essay for Drew magazine. She also gave tips for other sufferers: "One of the bravest things you can do is to kill that dragon and finally change this horrible cycle you are stuck in. I have finally been freed from the torment of guilt and of dysfunction."

What: People