Marian Keyes appeared on Friday night's Late Late Show where she spoke candidly about her addiction to alcohol, saying it was "the only thing I cared about eventually".
The internationally best-selling author was joined by a special audience of family and friends to look back at her life and incredible career over the past three decades.
The author said her introverted nature led to her love of books at a young age.
"I found the world a very frightening place. I read all the time, books were my first addiction. I discovered Enid Blyton when I was six. It was the saving of me," she shared.
When asked by Ryan Tubridy if she was was a difficult teenager she agreed wholeheartedly.
"Yes, awful! I feel I was particularly bad. All teenagers feel misunderstood and angry, but I always hated myself as well as everyone else.
"I always felt wrong and in the wrong life. Just like everybody else had it sorted and I could never figure out how to be normal."
Keyes added: "Throw in a load of out-of-control hormones, teenage-ness, and I was worse than sullen."
She went on to study law after completing her Leaving Cert.
"I did it because I wanted to to stave off real life for another three years," she said. "I hadn't a clue, I was really intimidated. There seemed to be an awful lot of clever people whose fathers were High Court judges. I wasn't related to any High Court judges."
Keyes left Dublin for London in 1986, saying it offered her the opportunity to "reinvent myself, to escape myself".
"We couldn't afford to have Ireland in colour, it was black and white 'til 1993!" @MarianKeyes 🤣#LateLate pic.twitter.com/jChOYrTvkk
— The Late Late Show (@RTELateLateShow) February 18, 2022
"The year I left, 50,000 people left Ireland, there were no jobs," she said. "It didn't rain for 365 days a year but it felt like it did. We couldn't afford to have Ireland in colour so it was in black and white until 1993," she continued jokingly.
"It was so miserable and it felt like you could do nothing in this country. I mean you still can't, but I don't mind it anymore," she quipped.
Keyes said that she "enthusiastically" embraced the partying lifestyle.
"I was so happy. I had my law degree and I thought 'I'd love to be a waitress'. I just thought it'd be fun, and it was for a while. It was London in the '80s, there was so much money swilling around. People were just flinging it at us as the waitresses. At the same time, I was living in a squat in the 26th floor of a towerblock, it felt so rebellious and..."
"Unirish," Tubridy offered.
"Yes! I really thought this was the life," she agreed.
Keyes said it got out of control.
"Things were awful. My drinking was never normal in that I drank for the wrong reasons. I drank because I felt being me was like wearing a pair of really tight shoes. Life was so uncomfortable in that prison. When I drank, it loosened and I felt like I could breathe and be normal and like how other people felt.
"Then it just was always worse, I felt worse the next day. It was like it was the only thing I cared about eventually, because it made me feel ok, except it didn't."
Her group of friends became increasingly concerned for her.
"Everyone was saying to me that they were worried and I just couldn't take it because I thought 'If I don't have this, I will have nothing'. I couldn't bear being me," she said. "So I did this lacklustre suicide attempt that was probably a cry for help at the time. But it meant there was no denying how bad things were."
Keyes came home to Ireland and went to rehab.
"Friends were keen to get me out of the country, because I was a worry to everyone. My friend Conor came with me to Ireland and handed me over to my dad. I went into the Rutland [addiction treatment centre] two days later."
Life changed dramatically for Keyes at this stage as she had started writing.
"I started [writing] four months before I crashed and burned so spectacularly," she said. "I got out of rehab in March, I got a contract in June for three books. Watermelon was published 14, 15 months later."
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The Late Late Show airs Friday nights, 9.35pm on RTÉ One.
