Nadia Sawalha has admitted that having her daughter Maddy had 'saved her life' as she feared she was 'heading to an early death' following years of heavy drinking and partying.
During a very candid chat on their How To Stay Married (so far) podcast alongside her husband Mark Adderley, the Loose Women star, 57, confessed that the couple's destructive lifestyles were a recipe for disaster and reflected that at the time, having a baby was a 'terrible choice'.
However Nadia then told how becoming a mother to Maddy, now 19, was the 'turning point' in her life as she realised she needed to be a 'decent person' and didn't want her child to grow up surrounded by 'a lot of booze and fags.'
Life changing: Nadia Sawalha has admitted that having her daughter Maddy had 'saved her life' as she feared she was 'heading to an early death' following years of heavy drinking and partying (pictured with Mark and baby Maddy in 2003)
The frank discussion saw Nadia discuss the early days of her relationship with producer husband Mark, 51, describing them as a 'beautiful disaster' and detailed how excessively they both drunk, which at points put them in life-risking situations.
She then went on to reflect how because of this, the fact that they then fell pregnant within just four months of knowing each other was 'terrible in every sense', adding that she questioned whether she even wanted to have a child with someone who she 'didn’t like enough'.
Nadia explained: 'Having a baby with you was a terrible choice, on paper. A terrible choice. And you with me.
'When I met you I wasn’t thinking about having children actually, I was really planning a different life. I didn’t want to have a child with someone I didn’t like enough. And I didn’t want to bring up a child on my own.'
Honest: The Loose Women star, 57, confessed that the couple's destructive lifestyles were a recipe for disaster and reflected that at the time, having a baby was a 'terrible choice'
She continued: 'I was a bit bruised by my eldest sisters relationship and I wasn’t looking at motherhood with rose tinted glasses
'I thought "is this really what I want?"
'We got together and the way we got together, we were a beautiful disaster, we were two quite broken people when I think about it.
'I’d had some serious tragedies in my life and you’d had some serious tragedies.'
The former EastEnders actress then went on describe the couple's chaotic and sometimes dangerous way of life, in which they heavily drank.
Change: However Nadia then told how becoming a mother to Maddy, now 19, was the 'turning point' in her life as she realised she needed to be a 'decent person' and didn't want her child to grow up surrounded by 'a lot of booze and fags' (pictured in 2012)
She said: 'We were both drinking very heavily, we were both crazy.
'When you think about how much we used to drink. We used to think it was funny to lie
