“There are days you wake up and feel so horrible that the only thing that will make you feel better is more alcohol,” ABC News 20/20 anchor Elizabeth Vargas tells Diane Sawyer in a special edition of the newsmagazine set to air Friday night. “And that’s when you’re in the death spin. That’s when people die.”
For the first time, Vargas is telling the whole story of her career–and the terrifying struggle with alcoholism that nearly destroyed her life. In an excerpt of the interview with Sawyer that aired Thursday morning on Good Morning America, Vargas said on at least one occasion she had “what I know to be a lethal level of alcohol in my blood system. And even that didn’t scare me into stopping.”
The interview is tied to the release of Vargas’ new memoir, Between Breaths, which will be released next week.