ENGLAND legend Paul Gascoigne has described “the pain” of knowing he might start drinking again even though he recognises it might kill him – and has turned his addictive personality to an addiction to sweets.

A new documentary about the former England footballer reveals he is now addicted to the sweet treats, and that he spends £1,000 a year on anti-wrinkle jabs to counteract the ravages of drinking.

Gascoigne, who played for teams including Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur, was followed by a film crew for three months for an ITV documentary after his return from a treatment clinic in the United States where he overheard doctors say he might die.

The 46-year-old told the filmmakers: “I just remember one bit after the third day of being in hospital when he said ‘I don’t think this guy is going to make it’ and I sort of put my head up a little bit and I was like, tubes in my arms and an oxygen tank injecting round my heart and lungs and that. I just come forward and I went ‘I don’t want to die I need to water the plants’ and that was it and then I woke up two weeks later.”

Gascoigne, who describes himself as “an addictive personality”, said: “With me now if I did have a drink and relapse, it’s like becoming tipsy and merry is okay for a couple of days but like the next mouthful I’m so down, I’m so depressed, I cry. I do all that because I know inside I’m hurting myself again. I know where I’m heading, a wooden box. Or I’m back in treatment or hospital. Or getting sectioned.”