Demi Lovato has revealed some shocking details about her troubled past -- including that she used to need her fix of cocaine so often she'd have to "smuggle" the drug on planes and "manipulate" everyone around her.

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"Something I've never talked about before, but with my drug use, I could hide it to where I would sneak drugs. I couldn't go 30 minutes to an hour without cocaine and I would bring it on airplanes. I would smuggle it basically and just wait until everyone in first class would go to sleep and I would do it right there. I'd sneak to the bathroom and I'd do it," Lovato, 21, told Access Hollywood.

"That's how difficult it got and that was even [having] somebody [with me]. I had a sober companion, somebody who was watching me 24/7 and living with me. I was able to hide it from them as well... I'm very, very good at manipulating people and that was something that I did in my disease, I would manipulate everyone around me. There were times I would just continue to lie, so that everything looked OK on the outside."

The X Factor judge entered a rehab program in 2010 because she was struggling with anorexia, bulimia, depression, drug abuse, bipolar disorder and self-mutilation. She also lived in a Los Angeles sober facility to avoid falling back into her addictions earlier this year.

Lovato apparently realized her bad habits weren't just all fun and partying at age 19 when she had basically lost control and became ill.

"I was going to the airport and I had a Sprite bottle just filled with vodka and it was just nine in the morning and I was throwing up in the car and this was just to get on a plane to go back to LA to the sober living house that I was staying at... I had all the help in the world, but I didn't want it," Lovato told Access Hollywood.

"When I hit that moment I was like, 'It's no longer fun when you're doing it alone.' I've really never talked about this stuff before... I don't know if I should be sharing this. I think at 19 years old, I had a moment where I was like, 'Oh my God... that is alcoholic behavior. [It's] no longer, 'I'm young and rebellious and out having fun.' It was, 'Wow, I'm one of those people... I gotta get my sh-t together.'"

Lovato explained she also began struggling with an eating disorder at a very young age.

"It was always there, but then I just acted on it at around 8 or 9-years-old. I started overeating, compulsively overeating. I would bake cookies and then eat the whole pan. I went from doing that to being unhappy with my body," the artist said.

"I went to just completely starving myself and that turned into throwing up and starving myself, and it was just this crazy battle going on inside of meIt got really difficult [and] I would throw up and it would just be blood and it was something that I realized if I don't stop this, I am going to die."

Lovato has seemingly been doing very well in recent months. For example, she spent her 21st birthday in August helping to build a new school in Kenya. She also recently wrote her own memoir entitled Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year.

Lovato's mother, Dianna, also opened up to Access Hollywood about her daughter's past struggles. Dianna admitted she had a good idea Lovato was abusing drugs but didn't want to face the harsh reality.

"I suspected [she was using drugs]. It's like any other parent, when you see things, when you see signs, you don't want to believe that's what is actually going on. So when they're telling you that's not what is going on... you want too badly to believe them and I think for a long time I was in denial," Dianna explained.

"I didn't know. I didn't actually see her, so when she said, 'Oh no, There's nothing going on. I'm not using, I'm not drinking, I wasn't doing any of these things,' Why was I not to believe her?"

Dianna said she feels somewhat responsible for Lovato's past eating disorders because she had a similar mentality herself for a long time.

"I had issues I needed to work on as well because I wasn't setting a good example for her. I had a terrible eating disorder that I had for many, many years and I didn't realize it, and I had to face up to the fact that I was suffering as well," Dianna revealed.

"And a lot of what [Demi] went through with an eating disorder had to do with what she had seen growing up and I also had severe depression. I ended up asking for help, actually, they did an intervention with me and said, 'Mom, you need to get help.'"

Things apparently got better when both girls acknowledged their problems and worked through them individually and together.

"The issue I had was definitely a mental health issue and I also had to get help for my struggles, as well as she did, and then once I did, we became closer as mother and daughter [and] we also became well as a family," Dianna added.

Lovato noted she's "so proud" of her mother and loves her very much.

Lovato, a singer and former Disney Channel star, has a supporting role on Glee and also currently serves as a mentor on The X Factor with Simon Cowell, Kelly Rowland and Paulina Rubio. The reality singing competition's next episode airs Wednesday night at 8PM ET/PT.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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