Ronnie Wood has revealed that he was once so addicted to drugs that he mistakenly smoked meringue instead of crack cocaine. "It got to the point where I would be on my hands and knees looking for crumbs that might have fallen out of the crack pipe," News of the World quoted him as saying.

"I even banned my children eating meringues in the house after I ended up smoking sugar, believing it to be cocaine," he said.

The Rolling Stones guitarist, who had a 3,000-pound-a-day freebase coke habit in the 1980s, said in an interview that booze was an even worse problem.

Two years ago, he was downing two bottles of vodka a day.

The rocker, who checked into rehab seven times in 30 years, says he has been sober for six months now and credits new girlfriend Ana Araujo with his success after she poured away all the alcohol in his house.

"It was just a downward spiral. When the last bottle went, it was the end of an era. Something clicked in me," he added.