By Mark Gray
2:30am PDT, Sep 30, 2023
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Sharna Burgess danced a little too close to death during her teen years.
The former "Dancing With the Stars" pro revealed she's struggled with substance abuse for years and started experimenting with hard drugs at age 15. By the time she was 17, she was smoking meth and "partying" multiple times a week.
On a recent episode of her "Old-ish" podcast, the new mom said a life-threatening drug-fueled evening wasn't even enough to make her open her eyes to the destructive path she was going down.
Dance, however, ultimately saved her.
Keep clicking to read more of the star's candid drug confessions…
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On a recent episode of her "Old-ish" podcast, Sharna Burgess recalled a specific drug experience as a 17-year-old. "We were sitting at the backyard of someone's house, and a crack pipe was being passed around with meth in it, and we were all taking hits of it," she recalled.
Up until then, meth wasn't exactly something Sharna did normally, so she didn't consider herself "hooked" on the drug.
Still, she was "partying pretty much three to four days a week" at the time, the Australian said.
Sharna would soon have a moment of "clarity."
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While doing drugs in that backyard, Sharna Burgess realized exactly what her "future looked like" if she continued down that path. She recalled thinking, "This was not what I was meant for."
"Here I was, 17 years old, high awake for three days, watching 20-somethings and maybe even young 30-somethings passing around this crack pipe just waiting to get a little bit more out of it," Sharna, now 38, recalled. "I realized that I had come from being an Australian champion ballroom dancer, I represented my country at the World Championships, I was an athlete, the best in the country at the time. And because of a knee injury, I fell off."
The "Dancing With the Stars" alum said she "realized how far [she'd fallen] and how much [she] needed to get back to that person" she used to be.
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While continuing to speak about her hard-partying days, Sharna Burgess recalled the time she'd "taken too many things" at a rave and "started frothing and foaming at the mouth."
"You sober up very quickly when you're in fear of your life like that," she said.
But if you think that stopped her from doing drugs, think again…
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Sharna Burgess's surroundings played a role in her drug use, she suspects, adding that her home life left a lot to be desired.
"I was very, very uncomfortable in my reality, so I would escape to this place of euphoria," she said. "And eventually, the things I would take to get to that place of euphoria weren't strong enough or enough, and I do more and have more and more often. And that was the slippery slope for me."
Eventually dance gave her "the strength" to get clean.
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On Sept. 22, Sharna Burgess and her beau, Brian Austin Green, announced that they were engaged. "The latest chapter," they said on Instagram.
The duo later revealed that they'd actually been privately engaged for two months, but only their inner circle knew. They both told People magazine that they have yet to discuss any wedding plans.
The couple welcomed son Zane in June 2022. The "Beverly Hills, 90210" star also shares sons Noah Shannon, 11, Bodhi Ransom, 9, and Journey River, 7, with ex-wife Megan Fox, and son Kassius, 21, with ex-girlfriend Vanessa Marcil.
