Demi Moore Recalls Reviving Her Mom from an Overdose at a Young Age: 'My Childhood Was Over'

Demi Moore is opening up about a tragic moment in her childhood that changed everything.

The actress, 56, graces the cover of Harper’s Bazaar October issue in which she details her upbringing with her mother Virginia King.

King suffered from a drug overdose when Moore was still a child, a moment that shaped the actress into who she would later become.

“The next thing I remember is using my fingers, the small fingers of a child, to dig the pills my mother had tried to swallow out of her mouth while my father held it open and told me what to do,” Moore told the outlet.

She added, “Something very deep inside me shifted then, and it never shifted. My childhood was over.”

Moore moved 30 times as a child. Her stepfather, Danny Guynes, died by suicide in 1980; the actress later reconciled with her mother before her death in 1998.

The actress went to rehab for drug and alcohol addiction in the mid-1980s. In January 2012, after months of partying and drastic weight loss, Moore collapsed into convulsions at her L.A. home and was hospitalized before going to rehab for addiction and an eating disorder, sources told PEOPLE at the time.

RELATED: Demi Moore Opens Up About Her Recovery: ‘I Was Spiraling Down a Path of Real Self-Destruction’

Moore spoke about her struggles during her acceptance speech as a woman of the year at the Peggy Albrecht Friendly House’s 29th Annual Awards Luncheon on October 2018.

“I feel like there are defining moments in our lives that shape who we are and the direction we go, and early in my career, I was spiraling down a path of real self-destruction, and no matter what successes I had, I just never felt good enough,” she said.

“I had absolutely no value for myself,” Moore continued. “And this self-destructive path, it very quickly … brought me to a real crisis point. And it wasn’t clear at the time the reason — maybe it was divine intervention — but two people who I barely knew stepped up and took a stand for me, and they presented me with an opportunity.”

“In fact, it was more like an ultimatum … unless I was dead, that I better show up,” she said. “They gave me a chance to redirect the course of my life before I destroyed everything. Clearly, they saw more of me than I saw of myself. And I’m so grateful because without that opportunity, without their belief in me, I wouldn’t be standing here today.”

Moore’s memoir Inside Out is in bookstores and available online on Sept. 24.