Josh Peck's Secret Addiction: 'I Used Food & Drugs To Numb My Feelings'

Former Nickelodeon star Josh Peck is opening up about his past secret drug addiction.

The actor, formerly one-half of Nickelodeon’s “Drake & Josh,” has a new memoir coming out on March 15.

The memoir is titled, “Happy People Are Annoying,” and it delves into his multiple addictions throughout his childhood and into his young adulthood.

Peck is 35 and nearly 15-years sober.

He currently stars on “How I Met Your Father,” but you will never catch him watching an episode of it.

In fact, you’ll never find him watching ANY of his work. This is something Peck refuses to do.

"I don't even watch my new stuff. I don’t watch anything,” he told People in an exclusive interview.

For Peck, Hollywood is a place of dark memories and sad times.

"I was always looking for something outside to fix my insides," he told the outlet. "But eventually I realized that whether my life was beyond my wildest dreams or a total mess, it didn't change the temperature of what was going on in my mind. I knew that nothing in the outside world would make me feel whole."

Growing up with single mom, Peck suffered from childhood obesity and was constantly teased due to his weight, so he turned to stand-up comedy.

"I spent most of my life dying to be typical but I grew up with a single mom, I was overweight and I was a musical theater kid who really had no social status," said Peck. "Comedy was my natural defense mechanism."

By the age of 15, Peck weighed nearly 300 pounds and decided to take matters into his own hands.

He eventually lost 127 pounds through diet and exercise over the course of 18 months.

"It became clear that once I lost the weight that I was the same head in a new body," he recalled. "What is really clear is that I overdo things. And then I discovered drugs and alcohol. And that became my next chapter. I used food and drugs to numb my feelings."

Peck compared his drug and alcohol use to a buffet.

"I had this illusion of becoming more confident and attractive when I was partaking," he admitted. "I was trying to quiet that voice that woke me up every morning and told me I wasn't enough."

Like most addicts, his reputation went from good to bad, and he became known for being “unstable and erratic.”

This was a massive wakeup call for the actor.

"I had worked so hard for this thing and I was getting very close to losing it."

Peck has been sober since 2008, is married and has one child, a boy named Max.

Last year, Peck’s former co-star Drake Bell came under legal fire for an incident involving an underage girl.

He was arrested in June by Ohio police for attempted endangerment of a child and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.

The arrest was for an “incident” that happened on December 1, 2017. Drake reportedly had a conversation with a minor before a concert of his in Cleveland that evening.

The conversation reportedly turned sexual at certain points, this according to reports from Fox 8 News.

The minor was apparently a Canadian resident, and she waited until she got back north of the border to report the crime. The victim reported the crime to local Canadian authorities in 2018. According to “The Hill”, the actor was in contact with the alleged victim prior to their December 2017 meeting.

In July, Drake was sentenced to two years’ probation by an Ohio judge after pleading guilty to criminal charges involving a minor.