BACKSTREET BOYS - CARTER FIGHTING FIT AGAIN AFTER HEALTH SCARE

BACKSTREET BOYS star NICK CARTER is racing back to good health after decades of drinking and partying left with a weakened heart.
The singer was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy - a build up of toxins that prevents the heart from pumping blood efficiently - after he started feeling ill in Europe on a recent Backstreet Boys tour.
And doctors told him he had to give up alcohol or risk death.
Carter, who admits to having his first taste of alcohol at two, when his parents ran an upstate New York bar, called the Yankee Rebel, says, "I had a lot of rude awakenings (about my drinking) at times, warning signs, from DUIs... I got the DUI and I realised it was wrong and so I decided to go and punish myself - go and do the classes, go do the DUI school, do the community service, do everything that I was required to do and then I would end up in a situation where I would stop for six months and then after that I would feel like it's OK to get back into it.
"But I was out on the road with the boys... about six moths ago... and I was starting to get, like, some chest pains, I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable and I figured maybe what I need to do is just kinda go and get myself checked out. I was drinking a lot and I was having a lot of anxiety.
"I went to the doctor and got a full check up... and he said, 'Listen you've got to stop. If you don't stop, this is going to get progressively worse'."
Carter stopped drinking overnight and now he's determined to beat his heart condition: "It's a condition that right now if I get it under control and I change my life, I could be healthy.
"I started replacing drinking and the parties with healthier things such as sports and playing videogames."