Sharing his story. The Bachelorette alum Craig Robinson opened up for the first time about suffering from addiction and attempting suicide.

Robinson, who vied for Ali Fedotowsky’s affection during season 6, revealed during the Thursday, January 31, episode of the “Reality Steve” podcast that he began using cocaine at age 18.

“Back at that point, it wasn’t something that I needed necessarily throughout the day,” he said of going without drugs while filming the ABC reality series in 2010. “But certainly, with the amount of alcohol that I had available to me on the show, I made do with what I had. … I drank every day on that show. I hope that doesn’t come across in any way as me somehow blaming anyone.”

Robinson noted that he was able to pass The Bachelorette’s drug test because cocaine passes through the system quickly. However, his substance abuse became more of an issue after his stint on the show.

“I wasn’t ready to call it quits on this whole thing until I was ready, until it really dragged me emotionally, mentally, spiritually into the ground,” he explained. “To the point that, like I said to you before, that I genuinely did not want to live under the circumstances that I was living under.”

After Bachelor alum and close friend Gia Allemand took her own life in 2013, the lawyer poured himself into suicide prevention work. He admitted to using his philanthropy to self-medicate. “I was getting to a place in my own mind where I was starting to have those same kind of thoughts,” he said. “That I knew how deep my situation was starting to get because my reliance on drugs was really starting to ramp up at that point.”

The former reality star left his job in February 2018 and retreated “in almost pure isolation from the world.” He said he attempted to hang himself in June, though he fortunately “wasn’t able to actually bring [himself] to do it.”

“I had drank a lot of whiskey, like I said, had taken a few sleeping pills and was also on cocaine, so there was quite a mixture of things going on in my body at that point in time,” he explained. “But I’ll tell you that it was something that I really, like, deeply thought about for about the week before that.”

Robinson turned to his family for help after his suicide attempt and ended up checking into rehab in Philadelphia in July. After staying in the facility for 30 days, he went to Florida for further treatment. The one-time TV personality said he also reached out to former Bachelor producer Elan Gale for support as the latter is sober.

If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or considering suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

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