Drew Barrymore "can't believe" she's alive after years of struggling with her mental health and addiction.

The 49-year-old star - who appeared in an advert for dog food when she was just 11 months old - rose to fame as a child star in 'E.T' aged seven, and she had entered rehab twice in her early teens due to drink and trying to take her own life.

She has always seen her personal life as the "ultimate work in progress", while the professional side has been "really brave and never entitled".

Drew - who has been sober since 2019 - told Us Weekly: "I’ve lost everything. I’ve got it back. I’ve lost it again. Got it back. So I don’t assume anything stays.

"I know not to take anything for granted. Whatever difficult times I’ve gone through professionally, I believed I could rewrite things.

"Then in my personal life, I was a failure and a broken person. I can’t ... believe I’m alive sometimes.

"And it’s the first time in my life, going on 49, that [the personal and professional] are complementing each other."

Drew - who has daughters Olive, 11, and Frankie, nine, with ex-husband Will Koppelman - noted she has carried a "bad girl" narrative her "whole life", but being a mother has forced her to change her mindset.

She explained: "Kind of like the drinking — I’m picking off things one at a time, going, 'I can’t carry you anymore. You aren’t good for me.'"

Drew started drinking aged nine, but in 2019 she simply decided she was "never doing to do this again", and she has reached a point where she doesn't have "cravings".

Reflecting on her dependency on alcohol, she said: "It was my coping mechanism. I loved the way that alcohol emboldened me. The anxiety went away.

"It makes you feel like an immortal that can handle anything. And then the next day you are living in that chemical aftermath and you feel worse."