I Was Fairly Drunk When I Met President Bush': TheBlaze TV's Laurie Dhue Shares New Depths of Her Alcoholism with Katie Couric

Veteran journalist and television news anchor Laurie Dhue, who hosted programs on CNN, MSNBC and the Fox News Channel before joining TheBlaze TV in June, spoke with Katie Couric this week about her previous struggles with alcoholism.

When asked to think back to some of the moments that she can't believe she "got away" with, Dhue thought for a moment.

"I was fairly drunk when I met President Bush," she admitted, the crowd laughing. "This is something I've never said publicly...I had a pretty big buzz going when I met President George W. Bush.  I was invited to a small reception and I got a chance to meet him, but there was no way I was going to do that sober so I had a few pops in my room in the Washington Hilton before I went downstairs..."

(Photo: ABC News)

Dhue said she battled her addiction for roughly 15 years.

"I don't know how I kept it going for as long as I did," she said.  "When I think back to the way I drank and trying to keep a full time job with a television network, I don't know how I got out of bed every day, frankly...I had no control over what I was doing."

But when asked if she was ever drunk on television, Dhue flatly responded: "Never."

Dhue said she finally accepted that she had a problem after getting in a drunken fight with a good friend and making a blackout phone call to the man she was seeing at the time. But the real "deciding factor" was the fact that her sister was pregnant.

"I never wanted this unborn baby to see me drunk, so I like to say that my nephew Robert saved my life," she said.

Robert is now 6-years-old, and Dhue has been sober since March 14, 2007.

To those who may be in the same situation, Dhue encouraged: "Recovery is possible. Help is out there. Hope is out there. It works, and you're not alone."

Watch the entire clip, below:

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