Demi Lovato’s mother said the pop star has now been sober for 90 days, which is a big milestone after her recent overdose scare.
Just one month before, Lovato had released a song, “Sober,” which revealed that she had relapsed after six years of sobriety, and in the lyrics she apologized to her mother.
“Mama, I’m so sorry I’m not sober anymore / And daddy please forgive me for the drinks spilled on the floor,” she says in the song. “And I’m sorry for the fans I lost who watched me fall again / I wanna be a role model, but I’m only human.”
Although de la Garza was aware of Lovato’s song, she didn’t know how bad her daughter’s situation had become.
“I just knew that she wasn’t sober, and that’s all I really knew at that time,” de la Garza said on Menounos’s show.
On the day of the overdose, de la Garza suddenly got a number of strange text messages, including one that said, “I just saw on TMZ, and I’m so sorry.” She said she was terrified of what might have happened to her daughter.
“I thought maybe it was a car accident,” she said.
Lovato’s assistant soon called her and informed her that Lovato was in the hospital because of an overdose. The mother asked her younger daughter to take her there, because she said she was unable to drive.
“I finally got to her bedside, and she wasn’t good, but I did say to her, ‘I’m here, and I love you.’ And she answered me back, ‘I love you too,’” said de la Garza.
About two weeks later, Lovato sent out her first social media message following the overdose.
“I want to thank God for keeping me alive and well. To my fans, I am forever grateful for all of your love and support throughout this past week and beyond. Your positive thoughts and prayers have helped me navigate through this difficult time,” she wrote.
At the time of her daughter’s overdose, de la Garza didn’t know much about opioids at all.
“I can honestly say I didn’t know what an opioid was at that time. I'd heard it. We’ve all heard the word, but I didn’t know anything about it until I started researching,” she said.
Bolling lost his only son, Eric Chase, to an overdose in September 2017. Chase was a sophomore at the University of Colorado when he took a Xanax pill that was laced with fentanyl and cocaine.
Bolling and de la Garza have been featured on various television shows and attended the premiere of “Not in Vein,” a film about opioids, to encourage people to share their stories, to teach parents to talk to their kids about drugs, and to remind people that overdoses can happen to anyone.
“It’s very hard, it’s not easy, and there are no shortcuts.”
