Drew Barrymore describes years after Will Kopelman divorce as 'cripplingly difficult'

Drew Barrymore has admitted the first few years after her divorce from Will Kopelman were "cripplingly difficult".

The Drew Barrymore Show host split from the art consultant, the father of her two daughters, after almost four years of marriage in 2016 and moved from California to New York to be closer to Kopelman's family.

In a cover interview with People magazine, Barrymore admitted her first winter in New York "took (her) down" and she turned to alcohol to cope with the "cripplingly difficult" time.

"There are times where you can look at someone you think is a strong person and see them so broken and go, 'How the f**k did they get there?' And I was that person. I broke," she confessed. "It was just trying to numb the pain and feel good - and alcohol totally did that for me."

After beating an addiction to alcohol and drugs in her youth, Barrymore spotted the warning signs.

"The drinking thing for me was a constant, like, 'You cannot change. You are weak and incapable of doing what's best for you. You keep thinking you will master this thing, and it's getting the better of you,'" she recalled.

The 47-year-old explained that she felt so low because the life she planned for her daughters Olive, 10, and Frankie, eight, didn't work out and she was so worried about them that she didn't think about herself.

"I probably cared so much that I was only giving to them and not taking care of myself. It was a messy, painful, excruciating walk through the fire and come back to life kind of trajectory," the actress shared.

The Never Been Kissed star spent time in therapy and eventually quit drinking, and she credits her show, which launched in 2020, for giving her a project to focus on and "something to believe in".