Coronation Street star Melanie Hill has revealed her secret addiction to prescription painkiller drugs.
The actress became addicted to Co-codamol painkillers while starring in Waterloo Road as she recovered from a hip replacement to treat her osteoarthritis.
Hill, 53, told the Mirror, "I needed a stick but I had to get rid of it when I was shooting scenes. I carried on for two years because I didn't want to take time out."
She admitted that it took three months to wean herself off the drug, which contains the addictive opiate codeine.
"I was on the maximum dose of Co-codamol painkillers and, after two years, it was hard getting off them," she told Woman magazine.
"It took me three months to get completely weaned off them."
Hill is no longer on the drugs and is happy to have begun a new role on Coronation Street as Roy Cropper's love interest Cathy Matthews.
She said: "When I got a call from my agent asking if I would like to be interviewed for Coronation Street I've never been as happy in my life because it's been a life-long ambition.
"I've grown up with it and I've got to a point in my life where I am happy to go into a long-running drama. Staying for a long time would be ideal for me."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here