Superstar Drew Barrymore booze and drugs nightmare began when she was just eight years old.

The E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL actress, now a fully recovered 28-year-old, blames her childhood stardom as the source of these problems.

She reveals, "By the time I was eight-and-a-half, I was abnormal and crazy. I could walk up to the door of any nightclub and they'd say, 'Hey, your 're the girl in the films ... come in.'"

Stories about the dark past of the CHARLIE'S ANGLES star are revealed in her new book called DREW BARRYMORE: THE BIOGRAPHY - due to be published soon.

In the book Drew confesses to being a "booze-guzzling, drug-using wild child".

She says, "I loved cocaine. Period. Just thinking about it caused my palms to sweat. By then I didn't get drunk for fun. I drank to get drunk.

"As soon as people forgot I was the little girl in ET, they got to know me as Hollywood's youngest alcoholic."

01/02/2004 21:02