Former Emmerdale and Coronation Street star Louise Marwood has revealed she battled a secret cocaine addiction that almost killed her.
The actress, 43, who played Chrissie White in the Dales-set soap, has told how she went to rehab four times to beat her drug problem.
Louise has now turned the story of her struggle into a one-woman show.
The star, who was killed off Emmerdale in 2018 when her character died in a car crash, said she developed an addiction after leaving the soap.
She was in treatment on and off from April 2018 until 2021.
Last year she returned to our screens playing Phill Whittaker’s devious ex-wife Camilla in Coronation Street.
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Louise has now launched a GoFundMe page to help finance her one woman show at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in London, which was inspired by her struggle.
She told Mail Online: "Having completely decimated my life, this appeal is asking for the opportunity to put my life back together again.
"I want to carry a story of strength and hope to the addict that still suffers while busting wide open the chaos that addiction causes to your life and everybody that you drag down with it."
The show is titled 'Rita Lynn: The Life Coach Who Wanted To Die'.
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Louise added: "Rita Lynn is about the life coach that wanted to die and she represents the voice in my head. My addict brain that nearly killed me and kept me as sick as long as I was.
"I was very unwell for a very long time and because of that I want to use my platform to help other people and that's what I'm asking for the opportunity to do really."
As for how she is doing now, Louise said she is much better but a work in progress.
She added: "I am a much better person because of what I went through. Not there yet. I'm not perfect. Progress not perfection in all things.
"I am recovered. I have a voice in recovery and a platform in which to share that.'I think I'm realising what creativity and art is there for in the first place – shining a light on, for me, the affliction of addiction and how that if I can recover anyone can. I really believe that."
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