(silence)
♪ (haunting notes) ♪
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♪ (haunting notes) ♪
- This is a music video?
- Oh, [bleep]! Is it Demi Lovato?
(gasping) Oh, my god! It's Demi Lovato.
- Is this that one song, "Sober"?
- Oh, I'm gonna cry.
You guys are really gonna make me cry.
♪ (gentle music) ♪
- ♪ I got no excuses for all of these goodbyes ♪
- I mean, I don't listen to her very often,
but obviously she's been in the news for being
in the hospital now.
- ♪ Call me when it's over 'cause I'm dying inside ♪
- That's sad.
- ♪ Wake me when the shakes are gone ♪
♪ And the cold sweats disappear ♪
- Aaah! This is even worse just because she's in the hospital.
- I think this song was such a shock because it came out
months after her documentary.
- ♪ I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know why ♪
- This is so sad because I actually really like Demi Lovato.
- ♪ It's only when I'm lonely ♪ - This is so sad.
- ♪ Sometimes I just wanna cave and I don't wanna fight ♪
♪ I try and I try and I try and I try and I try ♪
- Oh, wow. This is deep!
- ♪ ...I'm lonely ♪ - Damn.
- Hey, this is really tough to talk about,
especially when you're in the public eye like this.
- ♪ Momma, I'm so sorry, I'm not sober anymore ♪
- Oh, my god.
- ♪ And daddy, please forgive me for the drinks spilled on the floor ♪
- It's very personal.
- It's really raw. It's really her.
You know that this is really what she's going through.
- ♪ I'm so sorry, I'm not sober... ♪
- I haven't listened to this song before,
but it just says she really fall outs when she's lonely.
- This is really intense.
- The fact that she made a song about it is so bold.
It shows that she's aware.
- ♪ And I'm sorry for the fans I lost who watched me fall again ♪
- And she's struggled with addiction her whole life,
since she was 15.
- ♪ I wanna be a role model... ♪ - Aww, man.
- ♪ But I'm only human ♪ - We forgive you.
It's okay.
- It's true.
When you're in the spotlight, they always tell you,
oh, they're role models, but it's like they are human.
They go through their own [bleep].
- ♪ It's only when I'm lonely ♪
- It's really interesting when she says "I'm lonely"
because, I mean, you don't think a celebrity, somebody
with so many followers, so many fans, would be lonely.
- I think sometimes we forget that celebrities
are humans just like us.
- ♪ Momma, I'm so sorry, I'm not sober anymore ♪
- I like how blatantly honest she is, too.
It's really hard to do that nowadays.
- ♪ To the ones who never left me, we've been down this road before ♪
♪ I'm so sorry... ♪
- I don't know how I feel about having to apologize
because, obviously, you shouldn't apologize to anybody
except yourself.
- ♪ I'm sorry that I'm here again ♪
♪ I promise I'll get help ♪ - This is so heartfelt.
- ♪ It wasn't my intention, I'm sorry to myself ♪
- (exhaling deeply) That was deep.
That was a deep line right there.
- I heard that she OD'd.
It's just crazy that she relapsed.
- It's very brave of her.
It's a lot to say that stuff publicly, when you're that big.
- I have so many childhood memories that are attached to Demi,
Sunny With a Chance, Barney, Camp Rock.
When her documentary came out in 2017, I was shook to the core.
I didn't know what was going on.
- The lyric "I promise I'll get help," it sounds like she's saying that
to someone that's saying, "Please get help."
But the thing about stuff like substance abuse
is you have to want to do it for yourself
because it's a long, long process. It never stops.
- (FBE) So that was the lyric video for Demi Lovato's song "Sober."
- That was so sad. I felt that, man.
I could hear the pain in her voice.
- (FBE) As you saw in the video, she sings about how she has relapsed
in her addiction and is apologizing to her loved ones.
Several weeks after she released this song,
you probably heard that Demi Lovato was checked into the hospital
after a reported drug overdose.
- So this was a few weeks before.
- Yes, that's insane because it's like here's the song.
This is what I'm going through.
And then it's like you hear the reports
and you're like, "Wow."
- I know she wrote a song about her addiction
but I had never heard the song.
I thought it was about being sober and it's actually the opposite.
- (FBE) Reports say she's expected to make a full recovery
and that she may return to rehab once she's out of the hospital.
- Good, good.
Yeah, that's what she needs at this point.
- (FBE) How does it affect you to hear this song
and relate it to the news of the latest relapse?
- The timeline of it is pretty scary.
I wonder if anybody reached out to her after the song came out.
- When things like this happen, it's weird how many connections
you can find to it and how many things were signs and flags.
- Everyone was devastated, but no one was like, "Oh, my god.
Where did this come from?"
It was almost like a warning.
Part of me thought this is from the past.
This is just something she went through
and she's like I'm going to put this in music.
But then the other part of you is like--
or is this a right now thing?
But, you know, the more people talked about it,
it was like, oh, this seems like it's right now thing.
- The line that keeps sticking out to me in that song
is she's saying I did it because I'm lonely.
And I'm thinking Demi Lovato has millions of fans
and how in the world could she be lonely,
but we kind of have this perception because they're celebrities
that we don't really think they're human just like us.
Like she said, I tried, but I'm only human.
- It's just so sad that obviously she feels so bad about it.
Like, obviously, and then the fact that it happened, it's like,
oh, my god, this is so real, man.
I just feel for her, you know?
I get the feeling of trying to do something
and just totally failing at it and relapsing.
Not in the same sense that she does, but I get it.
It's a very real, very human song and I feel that.
- (FBE) All right, so before we go into more questions
about substance abuse and addiction, we wanted to show you
some lyrics from her song and have you break it down for us.
- Okay.
"And I'm sorry for the fans I lost to watch me fall again.
I wanna be a role model but I'm only human."
- She put that in the most perfect way possible.
This is a forgiveness plea.
- I just feel like you don't owe anyone an apology.
You, as an individual, are in charge of your happiness.
The responsibility of happiness is not falling under other people.
- The role model aspect is really difficult
and a lot of celebrities carry that as a huge burden on them.
Demi Lovato grew up on Disney Channel and Camp Rock
and all these big things, especially for
my generation specifically, who grew up watching them.
So it's really hard for younger people to not put
people in the public eye up on a pedestal.
- Even though celebrities like to say, "Oh, I tell my fans everything,
This is my life. I'm open to everybody."
It's really not.
They show you what they want to show you
and then when things like this happen,
that's when more things get uncovered
and that's really a sad and kind of scary truth of fame.
- "Momma, I'm so sorry.
I 'm not sober anymore.
And daddy, please forgive me for the drinks spilled on the floor.
To the ones who never left me, we've been down this road before.
I'm so sorry, I'm not sober anymore."
See, that's so sad!
She's just apologizing to her family.
You know, they're all rooting for me and I'm so sorry that I'm relapsing.
At the same time, you shouldn't have to apologize.
- I just love that she's able to be honest with herself
and be honest in her writing.
- People don't just sometimes go through it once.
She shows the actual journey and she's admitting it.
It's a lot.
- Although a lot of celebrities deal with drug problems,
none really are as vocal as she is because I think she also wants
to shed light on it.
It's not something you should be ostracized for.
- She's trying to make a point that there's a sense
of a lack of control in this because I've heard this
from a lot of people about addiction or things like that,
just, well, why didn't you just stop?
Well, a lot of times it's not their choice.
It's something that not a lot of artists, I think, would do,
even if they were in that similar situation.
- (FBE) And being teens yourselves, many people think of this
as the time when you experiment or start being in situations
where you maybe are thinking about experimenting
and trying different things that you wouldn't necessarily try before.
So we hope you feel like you can be honest.
Have you ever experimented with drugs or alcohol yourself
at this point in your life. - No.
Again, I think it's just because of my circumstance.
I've grown up around people that are going through
the whole rehab process and I've seen the dangers
of these things.
- All my school friends are doing it.
They're doing drugs and they're drinking.
They invite me to these parties, but I know better
and I know not to go to those parties.
- I have always the type of person to stay away from it
because my biological father left me due to
his substance abuse issues, so watching that growing up,
I said I want to stay away from that.
I don't want to do that to someone else in my life
and hurt someone the way he hurt me.
I have, you know, stayed away from it due to those issues.
- I have, yeah.
I feel like a lot of people-- I've seen my own friends
turn to drug and alcohol abuse.
I know a lot of people that have been to rehab.
I've also had relatives die because of it,
and it's just really sad because I know a lot of them
were just suffering with their own problems.
And it's just sad that people feel like they have to do that.
- (FBE) Demi's hospitalization has been polarizing.
Many feel like this is a moment to be talking even more
about addiction and recovery, and how addiction is an illness
with mental health components that lead people into substance abuse,
that we need to treat addiction as an illness
and not hide from that fact.
But there are others who reacted by saying
addiction is a choice and that experimenting with drugs
is simply a choice that leads to addiction and relapse.
What have been your thoughts around people
who suffer from addiction?
- I think, initially, it's always a choice.
In my opinion, there's peer pressure, there's so many things
that you can say are a result of it, but at the end of the day,
it's you making the decision to do this,
whether it's because you're influenced,
or whether because you just want to try it for yourself.
- I've always thought this, sure, experimenting
is a person's choice, sure, but you can't say that
you've never made a bad choice, regardless of how bad
on the spectrum it is.
The point is not that you [bleep] up and you did it
but rather you need help and I'm going to try and help you.
- Everything in life is a choice.
Just because you make a poor choice once
doesn't make addiction a choice. It is an accident
and you accidentally get sucked into it
and it should definitely be treated like an illness.
- It's definitely mental illness.
There's a lot of wrong systems.
I know people who have substance abuse issues
are often put in jails.
We should be treating them and trying to help them recover
instead of locking them up.
- I don't think there's just one answer.
It's hard to put blame on somebody, especially somebody
who's hurting so much, who's hurting themselves so much
with really dangerous drugs.
- (FBE) According to American addiction centers,
21.5 milion American adults over the age of 12
battled substance abuse disorder in 2014,
with the highest percentage being those young adults
close in age to you, between the ages of 18 and 25.
- Wow.
- (FBE) From your perspective, as someone around that demographic,
why do you think more young adults are suffering from this disease
than other age groups?
- I think it's when you're young because you think it's fun to party.
You want to experiment.
No one does drugs to get addicted.
- People are just buying in because everybody else is doing it
and they want to try it out for themselves
to see if they'll like it or not.
- Everything plays a role in it.
It's not just something that we came up with ourself.
It's who we see everyday, the people we interact with,
the TV we watch, the movies.
When you really think about it, we've become so desensitized
and so many things have become normalized.
- At this age, social media puts a lot of blast
on drugs and psychedelics and the "positive" effects
that these trips have.
As early as 7th grade, I can remember people
talking about acid and other dopes and just really unnecessary things
that people just try out of curiosity, which is horrible.
- We have a really big drinking culture issue right now
and I think that's in large part due to the high age
and how it's really stigmatized.
Young people are just at the highest risk
because it's been repressed for so long for them.
- My cousin died back in 2016 or 2015.
He didn't even seem like someone who'd get into that kind of stuff.
He had a scholarship at UCLA.
He was on track to graduating and getting--
he had a great internship.
Victims feel like they can't talk about it and that sucks,
but I feel like that's why we need to talk about stuff like this,
especially on platforms like this show,
to tell people you can talk to people about it
and that you shouldn't feel frightened to let someone know
if you need help,
- (FBE) So getting back to Demi, there's been a huge outpouring
of support for her.
What would you want her to know right now?
- Demi, you have been such a great role model
by being so open and you're helping so many people
by just doing that.
Stay strong.
- Demi, I hope that you're doing better.
I know that it's a really hard time for you right now,
but I hope you know that nobody is disappointed with you.
- We love you, Demi.
You're a real person. You make real things happen.
We don't want bad things to happen to anybody,
especially someone who just wants good for everybody else,
so we really hope you get the help you need.
- Getting the help is the best thing you could do for yourself.
The fact that you apologized to yourself in the song
is a huge deal because a lot of people don't apologize to themselves ever.
This is a journey that you will deal with for the rest of your life
but just putting yourself first is the best thing you could do.
- Thank you for using your struggles to shed a light on something
that not a lot of people talk about or not a lot of people
like to acknowledge as a real problem.
I hope that this message can reach a lot
of different types of people and that it can really show that
there's a lot of work that really needs to be done
and there's a lot off ways that you can find help.
- (FBE) So it's possible that are people watching this
who might be struggling with mental health
and addiction or trying to stay sober, or know someone who is.
So what would you want to say if they are seeing this?
- If you're struggling with mental health or addiction,
feel free to reach out to your friends, your family,
and those close to you.
- There's different outlets.
Drugs, alcohol, is not the only way.
It may seem like it's the easiest option,
but in the long run, it's not gonna benefit you.
- As much as people just overhype facilities, they work.
I've seen so many different people go through a facility
and actually come out way better.
And so facilities just offer treatments
that just talking to somebody won't.
- We get it, that it's hard, but if you need help,
you can reach out. Tell your mom, your friend,
a counselor. There are even anonymous
helplines out there online and through the phone
if you really can't, you know, bear to see somebody in person.
But just know that we get it and that you don't have to be
a silent victim.
- Life gets so much better.
Start thinking those positive thoughts and start affirming yourself.
You are beautiful. You are loving.
You are kind. You are amazing.
This day is your day.
Just keep affirming yourself and keep knowing that
you're loved by people, even though you might not feel it.
There are people out there in the world
that love you for being who you are.