“It’s either death or a long life of misery.”

Austin Shepard faced a harsh reality after he made his way onto the Love Island USA villa in Fiji last summer. The TV personality recently appeared on TMZ’s Previously On… podcast, where he revealed he is 11 days sober after a stint at rehab for opioid addiction.

“I know how this road goes. I’ve got plenty of friends that are not here today that have sadly passed from it. It’s either death or a long life of misery,” he said of his struggles with addiction.

He explained that he experienced a moment of clarity while filming the reality show’s spin-off, Love Island: Beyond the Villa. According to TMZ, producers reportedly didn’t know about his relapse because he “tried to avoid filming as much as possible.”

“I’m a pretty manipulative, functional addict until it becomes so unmanageable, like how it got,” Austin explained, before revealing he had a seizure once he arrived at the detox center and had to be sent to the emergency room.

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Austin Shepard on Love Island USA season 7.

This isn’t the first time Austin has opened up about his struggles with addiction. After he left the Love Island USA villa last year, he told The Journey Podcast about an unconventional and “super intense” 18-hour treatment he underwent.

“When I was 22, to get clean from opiates, I did this psychedelic stuff called Ibogaine,” he said on the August 26 episode of the pod.

He added that during his trip on the psychedelic, he saw a version of his life flash before him. “In it, I lived until I was 64 years old as an addict, day in and day out,” he shared. “Had two kids, a wife, kids got taken away. And then I came out of my trip 18 hours later, and I was like, ‘Holy shit, I need to get my life figured out.’”

These days, Austin says he’s committed to staying sober as he stays with his dad and his girlfriend (he’s reportedly dating Raven Wood from O’ahu Shores), telling TMZ that he “plans to pay it forward and start a scholarship for those in need.”