She has turned her life around after a well documented battle with alcohol addiction and now focuses on well-being and ‘feeding her brain’.
And in a new interview, Davinia Taylor reflected on living through decades of ‘excess’ in the Nineties and Noughties, as she explained how ‘nobody was sober’.
Speaking to the Telegraph, the former Hollyoaks star, 43, said she feels ‘lucky’ to have experienced a period of time where there was ‘less self-regulation’.
‘Nobody was sober!’ Davinia Taylor reflected on living through decades of ‘excess’ in the Nineties and Noughties, as she explained how ‘nobody was sober’ (pictured with Fran Culter in 2000)
Davinia was famed for her position in the notorious Primrose Hill party set, where she joined her then-husband Dave Gardner in partying through the Nineties with pals including Kate Moss, Sadie Frost and Jude Law.
Reflecting on the period, she said: ‘I think those of us who lived through the Nineties and Noughties excess are all pretty lucky. Now there’s camera phones and social media, there’s a bit more self-regulation.’
Davinia, who has been sober for 13 years after battling alcohol addiction, said: ‘And to be honest, everyone was at it, because sober wasn’t a thing back then.
‘I think I knew one sober person. And I would think “Oooh, that’s odd! Why would you do that? Isn’t that awfully boring?”.
Davina has since ditched her party girl ways in favour of a cleaner existence, after a 12-week rehab stint in South Africa where she was eventually able to kick her habits.
Experiences: Speaking to the Telegraph , the former Hollyoaks star, 43, said she feels ‘lucky’ to have experienced a period of time where there was ‘less self-regulation’
The actress described her battle with alcoholism as a an ‘eternal hell’, because she knew she shouldn’t be drinking but was in a heavy period of withdrawal
Once she got clean, Davinia said she became addicted to other areas of life, such as eating when she gained ‘stones’, before eventually finding a happier balance.
She shares son Grey, 13, with Dave, and Luxx, nine, whose father has never been revealed, and Asa, six, and four-year-old Jude with her partner Matthew Leyden.
Davinia recently told The Sun how she wishes her mother, who died in 2013, could see the woman she has become.
Lifestyle: Davinia was famed for her position in the notorious Primrose Hill party set, where she joined her then-husband Dave Gardner in partying through the Nineties with pals including Kate Moss, Sadie Frost and Jude Law (pictured in 2003)
She said: ‘For her to see me now, as a mother – happy, settled and not needing the fineries to support my ego – would have made her really proud.’
At one point in her life, Davinia faced a custody battle and was suicidal, however, now she has been sober for 12 years and said her old self would not have been able to recognise the woman she is today.
She said her ‘old self’ would have disliked who she is now and told her to ‘bore off’.
In the interview, Davinia described herself as a normal mother who doesn’t live a Hollywood lifestyle – and hates yoga.
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She revealed she has learned to accept it is ok for her to get angry and to make mistakes, so long as she recovers from the mood dip.
‘It would have made her really proud’: Davinia recently told The Sun how she wishes her mother, who died in 2013, could see the woman she has become
Explaining why her younger years were so wild, Davinia said that she has a high dopamine drive, meaning the impulsiveness to do things to feel alive was stronger.
She said that this is a classic symptom of ADHD, but that it is not as widely diagnosed in women as it is in men.
‘A girl with ADHD will be referred to as ‘Dolly Daydream’, and that was me,’ she said. ‘I’m hoping over the next few years that a lot of women my age realise they can get help for it now – it’s not too late.’
In 2007, Davinia gave birth to her first child, Grey, and began to suffer with postnatal depression which she attempted to buy her way out of.
Old vs new: She said her old self would have disliked who she is now and told her to ‘bore off’. Pictured: Davinia in 2010
She said doctors prescribed her with strong medication for bipolar disorder which she stayed on for five years and although she was no longer suicidal, she said she started drifting through each day.
Reflecting back on the birth of Grey, Davinia said she now realises she was suffering from a crash of her supportive hormones due to the IVF – but doctors had written this off as ‘baby blues’.
She now hopes that her struggle can encourage more women to talk about this issue and push for hormone replacement therapy to help them.
During her divorce from her ex-husband Dave Gardner in 2009, her mother sent her to rehab in South Africa to overcome her alcohol addiction, and Davinia said she thinks without her mother’s help, she would not be here now.
‘By the time I was out the other side of the divorce, I was beyond any relapse. It was a blessing in disguise, because it put me in fight mode, and sometimes that’s my comfort zone. I had to be razor-sharp and although it wasn’t necessarily pleasurable, it gave me focus.
Honest: Despite her lifestyle transformation, Davinia described herself as a normal mother who doesn’t live a Hollywood lifestyle – and hates yoga
After ditching alcohol, Davinia said she turned to sugars and unhealthy foods, because she didn’t realise how much of an impact they could have on her health.
She said that her poor diet caused her to feel joint pan, caused her to start forgetting things and her general mood was also being affected.
To combat this, Davinia said she started reading up on dietary knowledge and came out a happier person and better woman to her friends and family.
However, she also said that she hasn’t become obsessive over her health, even joking that she’d even recently had a fry-up.
If she is feeling low though, she added that she ups the amount of fats and protein she consumes, and enjoys a cold shower and a run.
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