Whoopi Goldberg considers her sobriety journey to be a matter of life and death.

The 68-year-old star battled a serious cocaine addiction during the 80s, and Whoopi has admitted that she faced a "very simple" life choice at the time.

Speaking to 'Entertainment Tonight', the actress explained: "Well, it was very simple - do you want to die or do you want to live? Very simple."

Despite this, Whoopi actually enjoyed a huge amount of success at the height of her addiction.

The Hollywood star shared: "I was making a lot of money and I had a lot of access to things I didn't really need to and found myself in the position of making the decision, 'Do you want to live or do you want to do this for the rest of your life?'

"And I was like, 'This is way too much to take on', so I decided to get straight. And I did. And we're good.

"I like the idea of living."

Whoopi has opened up about her personal struggles in her new memoir, 'Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother and Me'.

And the veteran star feels she "needed" to share her story with the world.

She said: "I didn't know if now was the right time to tell the story. It was just what I decided I needed to do. It wasn't like a big revelation, and I think it's just because I was starting to forget some stuff, you know?

"The book isn't really about me. It's about the trio of people, and so I wanted to hold on as long as I could and kept writing stuff and this came out."