[Callum]

TV star Denise Welch today reveals she snorted cocaine in between filming scenes on Coronation Street.

Denise, 51, who played Natalie Barnes, confesses sneaking off set to the toilets for a fix of the drug to ward off crippling depression.

She tells in a candid autobiography, serialised in the Mirror from today, of meeting her dealer at 3am on crime-ridden back streets and driving while high on coke.

She says: “The risks I took were incredible. I was a total wreck.”

Shaking and sweating, Denise Welch locked herself in the Coronation Street toilets, clutching a £50 wrap of cocaine.

Just a few feet away, on the set of the Rovers Return, her cast mates were filming Weatherfield stalwart Betty Driver’s real life and on-screen 80th birthday celebrations.

As the pub landlady and one of the soap’s most famous faces, Denise’s character Natalie Barnes should have been in the hub of the scenes.

But she had made an excuse to slip away and sneaked outside to score from a drug dealer. Now, bent over the toilet seat lid, she hastily chopped out a line of the class A drug with a credit card, pressed a rolled-up £10 note to one of her nostrils and snorted the lot.

It wasn’t even lunchtime and she was prepared to risk everything for a fix.

Denise, shaking her head, says: “It was my lowest moment. I’d reached a point where I felt taking cocaine was the only way I could survive. I was suffering crippling depression and I’d made myself believe coke was the only thing that could make me cope.

“In fact I was locked in a vicious circle because the more I took, the worse the comedowns would be. I was sinking deeper and deeper.”

During her four years on the Street – nearly 20 million viewers tuned in to her 1998 wedding to Des Barnes – she was regularly high on cocaine.

She often filmed crucial scenes without having slept and continued to snort lines throughout the working day. She even drove under the influence of drugs.

Now Denise, who has gone on to star in ITV’s Loose Women and BBC drama Waterloo Road, is breaking her silence in her frank autobiography Pulling Myself Together, serialised exclusively in the Mirror from today.

The Geordie mother-of-two tells of her battles with alcohol and clinical depression as well as her affair with a toyboy lover which almost ended her stormy 21-year marriage to Auf Wiedersehen Pet actor Tim Healy.

But it is her confession that she snorted cocaine on the Corrie set which will shock many – not least her former co-stars. Denise, 51, admits she first used cocaine in nightclubs in her 20s after being given the drug by a friend.

But she started to use it more regularly after the birth of eldest son Matthew in 1989. She had bouts of depression that left her feeling suicidal and found the highs helped escape her despair.

The day of Betty’s birthday scenes came at a time when she was particularly despondent. Still wired from a heavy night of partying, Denise was so desperate for a fix she made an excuse to nip away from the set. Outside, she made a quick call to her dealer who arranged to meet her near Manchester’s Granada studios.

She says: “I’d become the master of getting out of scenes in the Rovers. I’d always be saying something like ‘Don’t you think Natalie would be in the toilet? Or in the Rovers living room?’

“It was ridiculous but this was a particularly awful day and I felt very low. When you suffer with depression it can just hit you like that at any time and I could feel myself slipping. I didn’t have any drugs on me and I knew the only way I could possibly keep going and stay on an even keel was to get some more.

“A dealer came to meet me in a side street. I knew I was taking my life in my hands. Not only by meeting a dealer who would have been known to the police but also because I could have lost my job. I could have been all over the papers.

You’re rarely more famous than when you’re in Corrie. Demi Moore would have had a better chance of getting away with it than someone on Coronation Street.

“Yet my need to get cocaine to get me through the day was greater than any of those risks. By the time I’d got some more I was wired and sweating.

“I knew that they would have needed me back on set soon so I took the wrap to the toilets, cut up a line with a credit card, pressed a finger against one nostril and inhaled through a rolled-up note.

Seconds later, I felt better. More lucid, more alert. I was convinced that it was the only way I could go from feeling flat and hopeless to getting through. I walked back on set, checking my nose for any traces and paranoid that someone would notice.

“I would have been horrified if someone like Betty had known. We were very fond of each other and I would have died if she’d known what was happening.” In fact, nobody said anything.

The rest of the filming took place with Denise keeping herself topped up with line after line of cocaine. She drove home still high.

She says: “That was another risk to not only my life but also my children’s lives because I could have easily killed myself leaving them without a mother. The more cocaine I did, the more I needed. I’d grow terrified of the comedown which triggered my depression.”

Another shameful day for Denise followed Darren Day’s 30th birthday celebrations in July 1998. She went into work without having slept to film a scene with Michael le Vell, screen lover Kevin Webster.

She says: “I’d been taking cocaine through the night and anyone who has ever done it will know that coke and sleeping don’t go together.

“I had to be at work at 7am, by which time the terrors had set in. I was in a terrible, terrible state. I had this scene with Michael in the garage and it got to the point where I could hardly talk.

“I was worried that Michael would know although he never said anything.

“I had two nervous breakdowns during Coronation Street and spent weeks lying in bed having panic attacks because I couldn’t face going to work.

“I couldn’t tell anyone what was happening because there is still a huge lack of understanding of depression. So I carried on as if nothing was wrong.

“I could have pulled out but I had this work ethic which wouldn’t let me.” Denise’s habit became so deep-rooted, she was prepared to take incredible risks to feed her craving.

Several times she drove to meet her dealer in a back street in *Manchester’s Moss Side, notorious for its drug-related gangland violence.

In 1999, at the height of Denise’s dependence, there were 41 shootings in the area. Denise says: “Moss Side is not somewhere you want to be when you’re a vulnerable woman alone – especially when you’re a TV actress.

“But the fear of the comedown was greater than the fear for my life. That was the extent of my problem.

“It’d be 3am and I’d be desperate. I realise now how lucky I was. Anything could have happened to me.”

After paying £50 for a gram of cocaine, Denise would snort a line in the car before driving home. She says: “On so many levels I put my life and my family’s future at risk.

“Tim was aware I’d done drugs sometimes but he’d no idea that I was doing drugs at work and surviving on drugs to try and keep my sanity. He’d have been horrified.”

Denise managed to kick the habit when she became pregnant with second son Louis, who is now nine.

Apart from the odd hiccup, she has managed to stay away from the drug.

Three years ago her depression was diagnosed as being caused by a hormone imbalance. She was prescribed tablets that reduced the periods of depression.

She says: “I still have blips of depression but I know now it would be utterly destructive for me to go back down that road with cocaine again.”

Denise is nervous about the public reaction to her book – but hopes people will appreciate her honesty. She says: “I could have put a glossy glow on it but there was no point doing it unless I was going to tell the truth.”

Shocked to be honest

[Shaun]

I just saw an advert for this on TV and despaired.

Really? People care?

[MrGaryy]

I actually do not give a ****.

[Tom]

milf

[Patrick]

Denise on Waterloo Road... Amazing

[Tom]

Shes my favourite Loose Woman after Sherrie

[Kerry]

No shock as I knew plenty already. She's never shrunken away from her past. She's very open and honest about it. As for wether people care or not - don't read then

[LeatherTrumpet]

no one cares apart from 20 stone single mums from Oldham

[BigBrotherfan4ever]

I was shocked when i read this, i know she had alochol problems & suffered with depression, good for her being able to be open about it.

[LeatherTrumpet]

Originally Posted by BigBrotherfan4ever

I was shocked when i read this, i know she had alochol problems & suffered with depression, good for her being able to be open about it.

yes

open in a paid for series in The Mirror

how very noble.

[WOMBAI]

Although I do, to some degree, admire her candor - I also can't help feeling what did she have to be so depressed about! She had a comfortable lifestyle, a family, a career and no significant health problems - how did she allow herself to get into such a state! She wasn't that young either!

[Z]

Originally Posted by WOMBAI

Although I do, to some degree, admire her candor - I also can't help feeling what did she have to be so depressed about! She had a comfortable lifestyle, a family, a career and no significant health problems - how did she allow herself to get into such a state! She wasn't that young either!

Who are we to judge her reasons for being depressed? I sometimes feel depressed despite having a comfortable lifestyle, a happy family, no significant health problems and so on. It's not quite as simple as that. Anyway, I'm surprised that she was never caught by the police, the media, her family or even her co-stars; but I'm glad to hear she's overcome it now.

[arista]

Originally Posted by Tom

Shes my favourite Loose Woman after Sherrie

You Are Sad.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by arista

You Are Sad.

Who's your favourite Loose Woman?

[Ramsay]

who..?

[LeatherTrumpet]

Originally Posted by Zee

Who are we to judge her reasons for being depressed? I sometimes feel depressed despite having a comfortable lifestyle, a happy family, no significant health problems and so on. It's not quite as simple as that. Anyway, I'm surprised that she was never caught by the police, the media, her family or even her co-stars; but I'm glad to hear she's overcome it now.

depression my arse

[WOMBAI]

Originally Posted by Zee

Who are we to judge her reasons for being depressed? I sometimes feel depressed despite having a comfortable lifestyle, a happy family, no significant health problems and so on. It's not quite as simple as that. Anyway, I'm surprised that she was never caught by the police, the media, her family or even her co-stars; but I'm glad to hear she's overcome it now.

Yeah - I know what you are saying - I have my moments too - but neither of us ended up in that situation, did we! I know it isn't that simple - chemical reactions in the brain and all that - but there are good, effective medications to treat such depression - I cannot see how someone in her position could have been that desperate!