EastEnders' Danny Dyer opens up about struggles with drugs

EastEnders' Danny Dyer has spoken candidly about his struggles with drugs in recent years.

Set to leave his role as Mick Carter later this year, the star joined Jaime Winstone's Greatest Night Ever podcast to discuss his wedding to wife Joanne Mas, which occurred around the time of a Diazepam dependency.

First emerging in the late 1950s, Diazepam is a drug used to treat anxiety, insomnia, muscle spasms and alcohol withdrawal syndrome.

BBC

"I knew I had to f**king sort myself out because I'd been – sorry about my language – I'd been a c**t up to this point in the sense of what I was doing, what I was doing away from her, some of the situations I would find myself in," Dyer told the host, referring to how he exiled himself shortly after their big day.

"I look back and go, 'F**king hell man, I was weak'. I was wounded. I was vulnerable, but of course I couldn't play vulnerable because I'm playing Danny Dyer, whatever that is.

What to Read Next

"Yeah. So I'm a bad boy, f**king, you know, whatever. And I quite like playing it, but you know, the amount of f**king Diazepam I was on at the time, I was just munching."

Jeff Spicer//Getty Images

Such was the actor's desperation, he told his EastEnders bosses that he needed to escape work for a bit.

"I said, 'Listen, I've gotta go somewhere. I'm going to die'. They was like, 'Oh, OK. Uh, right'. And so I sorted it myself and I paid for it myself."

Dyer went on to reflect: "Fame never suited me. I was always f**king gonna be going down the wrong path. So I lost the plot for many years and I was a f**king lunatic.

"I became a sort of a cartoon character. I created it, don't get me wrong. I got wrapped up in that and I sort of lost who I was, really. I was doing shit loads of f**king drugs. I was searching for something. There was a hole in me and I couldn't work out what the f**k it was."

For more on drug addiction and dependency, including information and support, please visit FRANK or Action on Addiction.

EastEnders airs on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer.