Sober Cara Delevingne reveals she's now 'got her power back' after drug and alcohol abuse left her 'super depressed' - and admits the first time she got drunk she was just EIGHT years old

Cara Delevingne has revealed that she feels she has now 'got her power back' by going sober after years of drug and alcohol abuse left her 'super depressed'.

The model, 31, has struggled with addiction issues during her time in the limelight and two years ago notorious pictures emerged of her looking very worse for wear outside Van Nuys airport in LA after attending a festival.

In a new interview she has told how now she is clean she feels she is no longer 'being controlled by other things' and is happy to spend time around people who are drinking.

She also admitted that the first time she got drunk was at her aunt's wedding in 2001 when she was just eight, saying: 'I got drunk that day. I was eight, what a crazy age to get drunk!'

Cara - who is launching her new non-alcoholic Prosecco brand, Della Vite Zero, - told The Times of her new sober life: 'I used to think drugs and alcohol helped me cope … but they didn't, they kept me sad and super depressed. 

'I feel like I've got my power back and I'm not being controlled by other things.'

On the pictures of her outside the airport where she appeared to be completely out of it and was wearing no shoes she added: 'It was a stupid decision to go straight from a festival to work. I should have waited a day. But it was going to happen to me anyway, there were plenty of photos out there of me looking wasted.'

She said she doesn't know if she would have gone to rehab and got clean without seeing those images and credits her getting sober for landing the part of Sally Bowles in the West End production of Cabaret.

Cara went on to explain that being around people who are drinking 'doesn't mess her up' and that for this year's Glastonbury she still had 'just as much fun' but simply didn't stay up so late.  

It comes after Cara revealed she suffered unexpected 'pain' from going sober.

After giving up drinking in 2022, the supermodel, who recently launched the non-alcoholic wine, revealed she initially assumed she would feel better on mornings after she went out and dodged booze.

To her surprise, she ended up experiencing 'terrible' headaches the following day as she the result of drinking sugar-packed soft drinks.

'Nearly two years ago when I got sober, I thought, "I probably won't go out as much, my life's probably going to change." And to be honest I went out way more than before – which is great, apart from when you go out, you drink a hell of a lot of sugar,' she explained to The Sun.

But following her nights of sober partying, she said she would 'wake up in the morning with a terrible headache.'

'I'm sober to be healthy and to be happy. Instead, I feel left with pain,' the Paper Towns actress noted. 

Cara, ultimately, decided to create an alcohol-free wine brand to keep away the headaches by making something 'beautiful tasting, great quality but low sugar and low calories.'

'I just like having something in my hand. For me, it was never about the alcohol,' she said. 'Whether it's a wedding or someone has broken up with someone, you reunite over a glass of something.'

Delevingne concluded: 'It's not about being sober, it's about being yourself. When I want to go out to have fun, I want to celebrate.'

In 2023, Cara told Vogue how she had checked herself into rehab after images published by DailyMail.com in 2022 gave her a wakeup call.

The model said she ended up reflecting on her mental health after sparking concern with a series of troubled public appearances.

She told Vogue about how she previously had not been ready to address her demons until she fell into a 'bad place': 'I've had interventions of a sort, but I wasn't ready. That's the problem.

'I hadn't seen a therapist in three years. I just kind of pushed everyone away, which made me realize how much I was in a bad place.

'I always thought that the work needs to be done when the times are bad, but actually the work needs to be done when they're good.

'The work needs to be done consistently. It's never going to be fixed or fully healed but I'm okay with that, and that's the difference… 

'Before I was always into the quick fix of healing, going to a weeklong retreat or to a course for trauma, say, and that helped for a minute, but it didn't ever really get to the nitty-gritty, the deeper stuff.'