Drew Barrymore hasn't totally left her wild child days behind her — she still likes to run naked in Irish wheat fields.

"I'll drive in Ireland and park my car and run out into the field and rip all my clothes off and just
run in the wheat fields naked. That's for no one to see. That's to have that freedom of feeling, like, at one with nature. So I am completely unguarded still," she tells this Sunday's PARADE magazine.

"I think it alarms people, because I'm so responsible now that when I do do it, it's almost surprising rather than, 'Oh, that's just her doing her thing again.'"

Of flashing David Letterman during a live broadcast as a 20-year-old, she says, "How fun was that? I'm so glad I was so free at one point in my life."

Barrymore left her troubled childhood behind to become a very successful actor and producer.

After her memorable role in "E.T.," Drew's future looked bright. But early addictions led to a stint in rehab at 13, and by 15 she was working in a Hollywood coffee shop.

"I felt really upset when people felt sad for me," she says. "Like, 'Oh, wow, washed-up child actor having to work in a coffeehouse. It must be really, really awful.'

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"But I'm really glad for that time in my life having to ride the bus, struggling to pay my rent,
getting heckled by people. Even Hollywood casting directors were rude and patronizing," she tells PARADE.

"They would say, 'Do you know how lucky you are to be in this room?' I would just say, 'Yes, I do.' It was humbling and humiliating."

Today, she has put that hardship and her painful relationship with her parents behind her.

"For me, I just thought, 'What a waste of time to be angry at my parents. What a waste of time to feel sorry for myself.' The best thing I can do is to learn from them, good and bad, have my own family someday and just keep on going."