Whitney Way Thore‘s friend Buddy Bell is in recovery after going to rehab for a cocaine addiction.
Bell went missing after using cocaine in an earlier episode of My Big Fat Fabulous Life, which pushed his family and friends, including Thore, to stage an intervention when he returned, and helped him get to rehab.
“Truth of the matter is I just started using cocaine recreationally and it got out of hand. I was almost about to fall off a cliff, I was pretty far down that slippery slope,” Bell says in this exclusive clip from Tuesday’s episode. There were a couple times where my heart felt like it was in danger of overworking. I was ready to die an addict, I just didn’t care.”
But, thankfully, he says, his caring friends and family gave him an ultimatum.
“One of the things that my mother said is, she told a story of when I was a little boy and I was crying in bed because I had the realization for the first time that my parents were going to die one day,” Bell says, crying. “And then she flipped it on me, in the intervention. She told me how she went to bed worrying the same things about me. That was a reality that could have very well happened.”
Now Bell is back from rehab, and in recovery.
“I’ve learned a lot about myself,” he says.
My Big Fat Fabulous Life airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on TLC.