Amber Portwood Reveals She Began Using Pills at Age 11: 'It Just Kind of Spiraled Out of Control'

Photo: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Amber Portwoodis opening up about the devastating reality of her past drug abuse.

TheTeen Mom OGstar, 28, revealed during an interview on theDopey Podcaston Friday that she was introduced to pills early on in her childhood.

“I’ve been partying since I was about 11 years old, that’s the first time I did pills,” Portwood said. “In Anderson, [Indiana], there’s not much to do. A lot of kids at school, they always brought s— from their house. We didn’t know what much of it was.”

The mother of two said she began to “dabble in partying, hanging out with bad people” at the age of 15.

“That’s when the pills started coming in, a lot of opiates. In my mind, I think I was just trying to self-medicate at the time, probably very depressed, so it just kind of spiraled out of control,” she said. “It wasn’t [until] I got pregnant with my daughter Leah that I stopped doing drugs all together ’cause I was so scared of something happening to her. A lot of people don’t even believe me when I tell them that, but it’s the truth.”

Her downward spiral began once again a few months after welcoming her now 9-year-old daughter, who she shares with ex-boyfriend Gary Shirley.

“Six to seven months after Leah was born, I started taking opiates again, medication for my back for my scoliosis and I got addicted from there,” Portwood said.

RELATED VIDEO: Teen Mom’s Amber Portwood Welcomes a Son

In the years since her release, Portwood has turned her life around and in November 2017, PEOPLE confirmed she wasexpecting her second child, a boy.

In May, she and boyfriend Andrew Glennonwelcomed son James.

source: people.com