Justin Bieber says drug use was so bad, his security would check his pulse as he slept

Justin Bieber opened up about the struggles of being a young pop star and his past drug use, saying in a new interview that his bodyguards would sneak into his room at night and check his pulse to make sure he was still alive.

“There was a sense of still yearning for more. It was like I had all this success and it was still like: I’m still sad, and I’m still in pain. And I still have these unresolved issues. And I thought all the success was going to make everything good. And so for me, the drugs were a numbing agent to just continue to get through," he told GQ magazine.

As Bieber struggled, he had a few brushes with the law and displayed some erratic behavior. The "Sorry" singer, 27, told GQ that there are people in the industry who "prey" on others' insecurities and that made him angry.

"And then you’re this young angry person who had these big dreams, and then the world just jades you and makes you into this person that you don’t want to be," he explained. "And then you wake up one day and your relationships are f----- up and you’re unhappy and you have all this success in the world, but you’re just like: Well, what is this worth if I’m still feeling empty inside?”

Bieber said that at times during his career, he yearned for a sense of normalcy. The singer described one instance when he and his friend hid his passport in hopes that he could take some time off.

"The record label is freaking out, saying, ‘You have to do the 'Today' show next week and you can’t find your passport.’ It takes a certain amount of days to get a new passport. But I was just going to do anything to be able to just be normal at that time," he said.

Bieber eventually admitted to hiding his passport and went ahead with his appearance on the "Today" show.

The singer also opened up to the magazine about his health issues. Last year, he revealed that he has Lyme disease.

“To be honest, I am a lot healthier, and I did have a lot of things going on," he said. "I did have mono, and I do have Lyme disease. But I was also navigating a lot of emotional terrain, which had a lot to do with it. And we like to blame a lot of things on other things. Sometimes… It’s a lot of times just your own stuff.”

Related: The 26-year-old singer admitted that he was not proud of where he was in his life at age 19.

Now, the pop star credits his relationship with God and his marriage to wife Hailey for helping him get on a better path.

"My home life was unstable," Bieber said about finding love with Baldwin. "Like, my home life was not existing. I didn’t have a significant other. I didn’t have someone to love. I didn’t have someone to pour into. But now I have that.”

On his faith, Bieber said he believes that God is "grace" and “every time we mess up, he’s picking us back up every single time."

"That’s how I view it. And so it’s like, ‘I made a mistake.' I won’t dwell in it. I don’t sit in shame. But it actually makes me want to do better," he said.

Related video:

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com.