Kerry Katona swapped cocaine for ''boxes of shoes'' when she ditched her drug habit.

The former Atomic Kitten star has been sober for over a decade, and says her new addiction is shopping, as she's taken to buying new shoes instead of drugs.

She joked: ''I've gone from buying bags of cocaine to buying boxes of shoes. I don't think that's a bad change.''

And although Kerry likes to ''make fun of'' her past, she hates when trolls bring it up, as she ditched drugs 12 years ago and wishes people would understand she's no longer the person she used to be.

Speaking to the Watts the Goss column inside the Sunday Mirror newspaper, she explained: ''I've been clean for 12 years - let me make that clear. But a lot of people forget it and like to throw it in my face, so I like to make fun of it and joke about it.''

Kerry, 39, recently recalled how her cocaine abuse led to her having seizures, and said she faced near-death experiences three times before feeling a ''huge surge of love'' that brought her back to consciousness each time.

She said: ''I've had near death experiences before when I was doing cocaine I took so much of it that I'd have an epileptic fit and I'd start frothing at the mouth and my eyes would roll back.

''The only way I can describe coming out of it was like angels were bringing me back to life.

''I can still remember the feeling clearly - it felt like I was coming back to the light and I felt a huge surge of love. It's happened to me about three times.

''There was definitely somebody above looking after me.''

Kerry previously revealed she turned to drugs following the breakdown of her marriage to Brian McFadden in 2004 as a way of coping with the grief and anxiety she felt.

The blonde beauty - who has Molly, 18, and Lilly-Sue, 17, with Brian, as well as Heidi, 13, and Max, 12, with second spouse Mark Croft, and six-year-old DJ with late third husband George Kay - said: ''A divorce is a huge loss and you do grieve. The separation anxiety you feel when you lose your partner is hugely painful.

''The end of my first marriage was what started me on drugs - that was how bad it was ...

''Just because a relationship ends, it doesn't mean you snap back into normality. These things take time.''