There have been a lot of memoirs about people battling their own addictions. This memoir, “Falling with Wings: A Mother’s Story,” is about Demi Lovato’s mother, Dianna De La Garza, coming clean about her family’s addiction and her own. De La Garza is doing what she can to break the stigma by writing this book and showing how mental illness and addiction can be tied to an entire family.
De La Garza had her battles with depression, anorexia, and Xanax addiction. Her daughter, Demi Lovato, had substance abuse issues, bulimia, and bipolar disorder. In 1984, De La Garza married Patrick De La Garza who was her manager when she was a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. Patrick had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and never got treated for it, which caused him to be very violent. After having two daughters together, Dallas and Demi, De La Garza divorced Patrick in 1994. She went to a local women’s shelter to get help from the domestic abuse that she endured. By Dallas and Demi’s father never going into treatment, they had a complicated relationship with him where they only talked on the phone with him until he died of cancer in 2013.
De La Garza married Eddie De La Garza in 1995 and entered her daughters in beauty pageants and talent shows. Lovato won the role in Barney and Friends while her mother was secretly battling anxiety and depression. She figured her daughter achieving fame and stardom would help herself heal. After Lovato was done with Barney and Friends in 2003, she went to public school where she was bullied for her looks and acting career. Her sister Dallas would tell her mother that Lovato went on websites of anorexia or bulimia.
De La Garza read her daughter’s diary that said she would starve herself to be liked. At sixteen, Lovato was disobeying curfew and abusing substances. She felt if her daughter was paying the bills, she could not tell her what to do. It was not until Lovato punched a backup singer in the face while on tour that Lovato went to residential treatment outside Chicago were she admitted she did cocaine, pot, and Adderall. Dallas also entered treatment for substance abuse. Her daughters did an intervention with De La Garza to treat her long-term anorexia, PTSD from her first marriage, and Xanax addiction. De La Garza and her daughters have all been in recovery.
Located in downtown Midland, The Springboard Center’s mission is to offer programs and services to treat alcohol and drug addiction treatment using an evidence based curriculum, 12 step programs, diet, nutrition, exercise, emotional, mental and spiritual development for a long recovery. For more information, please call us at 432-620-0255 as we are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
