Amanda Bynes opens up about drug abuse

"Easy A" star Amanda Bynes, who had taken a break from acting to focus on her life, says she is ready to return to the spotlight after enduring a "dark, sad world" of drug abuse.

The actor said she first started smoking marijuana at the age of 16 but it was her dependence on Adderall that led to her spiralling out of control, she told Paper magazine in an interview.

"I'm really ashamed and embarrassed with the things I said. I can't turn back time but if I could, I would," the actor, who features on the cover of the magazine, said.

Bynes said she started smoking marijuana from a young age but she "didn't get addicted" and "wasn't abusing it" but she later progressed to trying harder drugs such as MDMA, cocaine and ecstasy.

"(I tried) cocaine three times but I never got high from cocaine. I never liked it. It was never my drug of choice.... I definitely abused Adderall."
Bynes managed to get a prescription by going to a psychiatrist and "faking the symptoms of ADD (attention deficit disorder)."
"When I was doing Hall Pass (2010), I remember being in the trailer and I used to chew the Adderall tablets because I thought they made me (more) high (that way). I remember chewing on a bunch of them and literally being scatterbrained and not being able to focus on my lines or memorize them for that matter."
After stepping away from the spotlight, Bynes described herself as being someone who had "no purpose in life" and spending her time being "stoned all day long."
Bynes also credited her isolation to hanging out with a "seedier crowd."
She is now four years sober, and credits her parents with "really helping me get back on track."