One of the stars of MTV's "Jersey Shore" revealed this week that he spent the last month in rehab after hitting "rock bottom," while battling alcohol abuse and depression.
Ronnie-Ortiz Magro told US Weekly he had went to West Palm Beach to seek treatment at Headwaters at Origins and left rehab on Sunday.
In an interview, Ortiz-Magro, 33, said he decided to get help in order to be a better father to 3-year-old daughter Ariana. He and the girl's mother, Jen Harley, have had a stormy on-again-off-again relationship for much of the past year, including public incidents on social media and one involving police in Las Vegas.
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“Eventually, all the bad decisions I was making were going to lead me to places that I didn’t want to be," Ortiz-Magro said. "I wanted to be led to the place that I am now – that’s happy, healthy and the best role model for my daughter.”
Leading up to his decision, Ortiz-Magro said he was increasingly depressed by the cycle of heavy drinking, cleaning up and then falling into a spiral worse than the last.
“I think it’s a chronic disease. It’s a progressive disease. I’m still struggling,” he said of his alcohol abuse. “You stop and you start up again, and it’s worse than when you stopped. You’re just like, ‘Wow, I thought I had this under control,’ but at the end of the day, it has full control over you.”
Ortiz-Magro appeared in both seasons of "Jersey Shore: Family Vacation," and is expected to return for the reunion show's third season.