Miss USA Tara Connor spent the weekend strutting down the catwalk in New York’s Bryant Park neighborhood, but she admitted that alcohol and drugs still beckon to her.

“If I were to say I never have cravings, then I would be lying,” the twenty-one year old told the Daily News backstage after modeling a gold and black V-neck gown in the Tadashi Fashion Show.

“I’ll be in situations where I would have initially had a drink, but I feel better and I take more pride in not doing it now,” she said. “I realize that if I put any chemical in my body that I’m going to have an allergic reaction, and it’s going to take me back, and I don’t want to go back.”

“A drug is a drug is a drug, regardless of what you take, whether it’s coke or whether it’s anything,” she said. “Some will say, ‘I want to use it for energy,’ or ‘I’m going to use this to calm my nerves.’ You need to learn how to do these things yourself, because I didn’t.”

T.C and Miss Teen USA Katie Blair accompanied designer Tadashi Shoji down the catwalk at the close of the fashion show.