John Partridge says \'Celebrity MasterChef\' saved him from cocaine addiction.
The 48-year-old actor - who is best-known for playing Christian Clarke in \'EastEnders\' - saw off competition from reality star Spencer Matthews and former rugby player Martin Bayfield to find victory in the 2018 final and he credits the show and cooking with saving his life.
John told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "Just preparing a meal is an act of self care and that was lacking in my life. I lost Mum in April 2017 and I was already down the wrong path.
"But in the six months that followed, I knew I needed to change. I just didn\'t know how to do it and, more ¬importantly, I didn\'t think that I could.
"I wasn\'t a big drinker, I was a big snorter, yeah, that was my thing. The booze was really secondary, the coke was the thing that was my go to."
John eventually made the decision to try and get clean after his mother died but after three weeks of Narcotics ¬Anonymous meetings, he decided they weren\'t for them.
He explained: "When I came home, \'Celebrity MasterChef\' was on and I thought, I could do that! So I called my agent and said get me on that show. Every day for the next three weeks I\'d go to the supermarket instead of going to NA.
"When it came to that time in the evening - the witching hour - when my husband, Jon, would go to work and I\'d be here alone I\'d start to get twitchy fingers. So, I\'d buy random ingredients and cook. That was how it started."
And John credits the show with helping him to reconnect with happy memories of his childhood.
John has since released his own cookery book \'There\'s No Taste Like Home\', which tells the story of the actor\'s grief over the death of his mother and how cooking helped him process his feelings.
He lost his mother Bridget in 2017 following her long-standing battle with Alzheimer\'s and the book captures the "emotional connection with food" that helped him cope with her death.
