Lisa Marie Presley recently addressed her past drug addiction struggles, saying that she feels she has “come a long way.”
PEOPLE reports that Presley appeared on the Today Show and spoke candidly to Jenna Bush Hager from her father’s Graceland compound.
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“I am proud. I’ve come a long way,” Elvis’ only daughter said. “I have a therapist, and she was like, ‘You’re a miracle, you really are.’ She’s like, ‘I don’t know how you’re still alive.’ “
“I was not happy,” she went on to explain of her drug addiction that began within the last five years. “And by the way, the struggle and addiction for me, started when I was 45 years old. It wasn’t like it was happening all my life.”
In addition to her struggle with addiction, Presley has been engaged in a messy divorce from her estranged husband Michael Lockwood, and also sued her now-former business manager on claims that he recklessly “mismanaged” Elvis’ fortune.
She later went on to say that, coincidentally, it was her father who she turned to during her lowest point, finding comfort in the music he left behind.
“I think I already said, ‘Help me, God help me,’” Presley recalled, when asked about what she would ask her father now. “I would want to know he’s there. Yeah, It would be pretty much, ‘I could use your help right around now.’ “
She also has four daughters who she says helped her get through the tough times. “She said that they’re the reason she’s alive,” Bush Hager stated on behalf of Presley. “That they have given her a purpose in life and it’s helped her heal.”
Now that she has made it back to living a healthy lifestyle, Presley says she hopes her story will inspire others.
“I’m not perfect, my father wasn’t perfect, no one’s perfect,” she admitted. “It’s what you do with it after you learn and then you try to help others with it.”
Now, she has produced a compilation of her father’s old gospel songs — titled “Where No One Stands Alone” — that were uplifting to her when she was struggling with her substance abuse issues.
Joel Weinshanker, the co-producer of the project, said that the album was so meaningful to Presley that she broke down in tears while recording her part for a duet with her father.
“I’ve never seen, and I don’t think anyone who had ever known Lisa Marie, has ever seen her lose her composure. And every single person in the booth, when we were recording, was crying,” he recalled. “As was she.”
“I was overwhelmed when I was singing it,” Presley admitted. “Because I was reading the lyrics and I was like, ‘Oh my God. I don’t know why this is happening right now. But I’m going to go with it.’ “
