Pete Doherty nearly lost his feet to drug addiction.
Pete Doherty battled drug addiction for years
The Libertines singer has been clean for more than two years but admitted he had a number of "close calls" over the years because of his consumption of heroin and other drugs.
He told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "I was really pushing the limits. There were a few close calls really. I nearly lost my feet and horrible things like that.
"It was very close, just because of the injecting. That's what happens when you run out of veins. It all seems so long ago now though but it was a hell of a ride."
The 43-year-old rocker - who lives in France with wife Katia de Vidas - is aware that people always expected him to die young and mused on the possibility he's a very different person to who he used to be.
He said: "Well, maybe I didn't make it to middle age. Maybe that fella's long dead and buried, you know? You poison yourself so much there's only so much an innocent soul can take until you morph into a permanent disfigurement.
"Or then again maybe not, maybe there is redemption and salvation and a second chance."
The 'Can't Stand Me Now' hitmaker insisted there wasn't an "epiphany moment" for him when he decided to get clean, which came around November 2019 after he was fined £8,500 and give a three-month suspended sentence for "violence while intoxicated" after being arrested twice in Paris for buying cocaine and then getting into an argument with passers-by.
He said: "It was tough. There was no epiphany moment. It was so many years of going to rehabs and trying different ideas, I did everything from projectile vomiting at the Tham Krabok monastery in Thailand to clinics.
"And people who have been in active addiction would say to me, 'One day you'll just know it's the time to stop.' Somehow the balance has shifted."
And Pete credits musician Frederic Lo with helping him fully turn a corner after he sent him a song.
He explained: "I hadn't had a phone or been online for a couple of years. Word got to me that this fella wanted me to cover a song by French singer Daniel Darc. It was called 'Inutile et hors d'usage,' which means 'Useless and all used up'.
"I got really emotional when he played it to me, it really hit home. I was giving up hard drugs and feeling f***** really. The best way to describe it for me is like being hit by a bus.
"It's still a bit of a struggle but the obsession does lift and it’s getting easier. But at the time it hadn’t quite lifted and it was really tough."
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