Demi Lovato’s mother, Dianna De La Garza, has opened up about the pop star’s overdose publicly for the first time.

With her daughter’s permission, De La Garza spoke to Newsmax TV this week about how she reacted to when she first heard about Lovato’s near-death experience following a drugs overdose back in July. She revealed that her daughter was in a “critical condition” for two days and that she had no idea whether Demi would make it or not.

“It’s still a really difficult thing to talk about. I literally start to shake a little bit when I start to remember what happened that day,” De La Garza began. “I was actually looking at my phone and all these texts started coming in.”

She said that she saw a flood of messages saying things like: “‘I just heard the news, I’m so sorry, I’m praying for your family, I’m praying for Demi.’ I was in shock. I thought, what is going on?… My heart just dropped."

Demi LovatoDemi Lovato suffered an overdose in July this year

Initial reports of Lovato’s overdose suggested that she had taken heroin, but subsequent revisions now indicate that it was oxycodone laced with fentanyl – both legal but incredibly strong and addictive painkillers.

After she spoke to her daughter’s then-assistant Kelsey, De La Garza and other close family members rushed to Cedars-Sinai medical center in Los Angeles to be with Lovato.

More: Demi Lovato addresses recent overdose directly for the first time

“We ran into the emergency room to be by her side, and she just didn’t look good, at all,” she remembered. “She was in bad shape, but I said to her, ‘Demi, I’m here. I love you.’ At that point, she said back to me, ‘I love you too.’ From that point on, I never allowed myself to ever think that things weren’t going to be okay.”

“We just didn’t know for two days if she was going to make it or not,” De La Garza said. “I was very concerned, and I was trying to be strong for her and for her sisters and for my family back home… I just feel like the reason she’s alive today is because of the millions of prayers that went up that day.”

As for her 26 year old daughter’s recovery, her mother added: “I can honestly say today that she is doing really well. She’s happy, she’s healthy, she’s working on her sobriety, and she’s getting the help she needs.”

De La Garza is speaking out to address the wave of opioid addiction that’s currently sweeping America.

“You don’t see it coming, and that’s the scary thing,” she explained. “The opioid crisis in America is at an epidemic level, and people don’t understand that until they start researching it… After this happened, I started researching and looking into how opioids are killing our kids… Every 15 minutes someone dies from an overdose… I want to do whatever I can in this fight and fight with whoever will help me.”

More: Paramedics heard rushing to Demi Lovato’s aid in 911 call