James “Arg” Argent has spoken for the first time about a near-fatal cocaine overdose that led to him being rushed to hospital last year.

The former TOWIE star has been open about his struggles with substance abuse in the past, and in 2017, completed a 10-week stay at a rehab clinic in Thailand.

However, in a new interview with The Sun, James has revealed he overdosed on cocaine on two separate occasions in 2019, both times resulting in the emergency services kicking down his front door.

Recalling his first overdose in October, the 32-year-old said: “I locked myself in my house and took drugs for three days straight on my own in the pitch black.

“I was at rock bottom. My heart was beating out of my chest, my nose was bleeding, I was shaking and my breathing was terrible.”

It was his TOWIE co-star and ex-girlfriend Gemma Collins who called the ambulance service, and after performing checks on James, they agreed it was safe for him to spend the night at his parents’ house.

Just two months later, though, James overdosed at his home for the second time, resulting in a hospital stay.

“It was the night before my birthday and I said to myself, ’Right, ‘I’m not going to do drugs tonight because I want to see my family on my birthday and spend time with Gemma’,” he explained. “But my addiction was so bad I couldn’t stop myself. I started early and was in a terrible place.

“I locked myself in, phone was off and my parents and friends were banging on the door again. Gemma called the ambulance and they broke through the door and did all the checks on me and this time they said, ‘There’s absolutely no way you’re staying here’.

“They said, ‘You’ve done so much and your heart is so fucked you could die. You have to come to hospital.’ I’ll never forget being in the ambulance with my poor mum.”

James has also told The Sun that he checked into rehab towards the end of last year for a fifth time, after finally accepting that he was addicted to the class-A drug.

He said: “I’ll never forget on Christmas Day sitting on my own eating a kebab for dinner. At that point I knew that was the moment where I said I need to get better and sort this out. You couldn’t get any lower.”

After a 10-week stint at a clinic at the beginning of this year, Arg now regularly attends a local out-patient facility, and is looking to the future.

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“I want to own [my addiction] the way that people like Davina McCall, Russell Brand and Robbie Williams have. I look up to those people and they inspire me,” he told the newspaper. “I feel like they’ve got a similar story to me and they’ve owned it and they’ve got themselves better and gone on to achieve incredible things so why can’t I?

“I don’t have to keep this a secret any more and I want to get this weight off my shoulders. It’s too early for me to sit here and go, ‘I want to do this so I can help other people and save lives’. But it is an ambition of mine further down the line.”

James was one of the original cast members on The Only Way Is Essex when it launched in 2010.

He last appeared in the show two years ago, but in the last year has appeared as a contestant on Celebrity Coach Trip, alongside fellow TOWIE star James “Diags” Bennewith.