Singer Beth Hart struggles to keep her bipolar disorder in check following her recent diagnosis and relies on her faith to help her cope with the condition.

The LA Song (Out of This Town) hitmaker battled drink and drug problems early in her career, and now the 41 year old reveals she has been secretly suffering with a mood disorder as well.

Explaining her long hiatus from the music industry, she tells Spinner.com, "All of the bipolar s**t, recovering from alcoholism, it became just very hard to take care of myself. Today, any kind of stress could make any of those things go haywire so I have to be very careful, I give myself pep talks but I've also come to believe that I can learn to do things (sic) another level. A lot of my survival today really is based on just me having faith in myself."

And the devout Christian admits her belief in God has been instrumental in her recovery.

She adds, "I wasn't really raised in a religious family. I was very neurotic as a kid, but I also used to pray to God as a young kid in school. It was a form of meditation to slow my head down and not make me feel nervous. I think that's when my faith really started. Then later in life I became best friends with people who were involved with religion and they turned me on to bible studies and things like that.

"I was never really into any kind of hard-core religious structure or dogma. Like I never want to hear about going to hell if I did something wrong. But I do use Jesus as my curve point and I think of his teachings when it comes to how I want to treat people."