Ed Sheeran Reveals Secret Struggle with Substance Abuse

"I think you need to, when you get into the industry, adjust to it — and I didn't adjust because I was constantly working on tour. And all the pitfalls that people read about, I just found myself slipping into all of them. Mostly, like, substance abuse," Sheeran said on "The Jonathan Ross Show". "I never touched anything. I started slipping into it, and that's why I took a year off and buggered off."

"I didn't really notice it was happening," he added. "It just started gradually happening, and then some people took me to one side and were like, 'Calm yourself down'… It's all fun to begin with, it all starts off as a party and then you're doing it on your own and it's not, so that was a wake-up call and taking a year off."

During the year-long hiatus between his second and third album, the 26-year-old singer ditched his cell phone and stayed away from social media. He then turned all his attention towards his music.

"I focused on work, and I can't work under the influence, I can't write songs under the influence, I can't perform under the influence — so the more I worked the less [that happened]. I've worked my whole life to get to where I am and you can't lose that over something that you do in your spare time," Sheeran said.

The "Shape of You" singer credited his girlfriend, Cherry Seaborn, with pulling him out of the darkness as well.

"We live together now, and I think that was a real help grounding me. I was a 25 year old in the music industry on tour so I just needed someone to balance me out," he said.

Sheeran is currently on tour for his third album "Divide," but recently postponed performances in Asia due to broken bones from a biking accident. "A visit to my doctors confirmed fractures in my right wrist and left elbow that will leave me unable to perform live concerts for the immediate future. Sadly, this means that the following shows will not be able to go ahead as planned." he shared on Instagram earlier this week.