ATLANTA -- The woman who helped persuade accused courthouse shooter Brian Nichols to surrender disclosed Wednesday what she did in order to save her life and to end the search for Georgia's most-wanted fugitive.

Speaking to television talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Ashley Smith said she befriended Nichols and gave him some of her drug stash, an effort to save her life.

"I thought I was going to die," Smith said during the interview on Wednesday's show, which airs at 4 p.m. on WSB-TV/Channel 2. "I thought he would shoot me."

Smith appeared on Winfrey's nationwide show one day after her book, "Unlikely Angel," was published. It also provides details about what transpired in her Gwinnett County apartment in the moments when law enforcement officers throughout the nation were looking for Nichols, who is accused of killing a Fulton County judge, court reporter, sheriff's deputy and federal agent.

During a gripping interview with Winfrey, Smith recounted how she had gone for cigarettes and returned to her apartment late Friday night to find a stranger sitting in a parked pickup truck. Smith said Nichols forced his way into her apartment and grabbed her, the beginning of an ordeal that lasted several hours.

"I was hurrying to get my key in the door," she said. "When I stuck my key in the door and unlocked the door and turned around and there he was. And I started screaming at the top of my lungs."

Nichols, who was wearing a cap, barged into the apartment and put a gun to Smith's head, she said, before he asked her if she recognized him.

Smith then recounted for Winfrey what happened inside the apartment: How she shared her troubled past with Nichols, cooked pancakes and was forced to sit in the bathroom with her head covered while Nichols showered.

"I figured the best way for me to survive was to do everything he told me to do," she said. "I was very nervous. I was scared."

The discovery that has garnered the most attention is the admission by Smith, who had been in rehab for drug treatment, that she shared "ice," or crystal meth, with Nichols.

She said she did the drug "every day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week." Smith, who had to surrender custody of her daughter while battling the addiction, said she did not use the drug when she offered it to Nichols, even though he asked her to do so.

"I thought I would rather die in this apartment tonight not doing those drugs," she said. "Because there was point in my life where I said I would rather do these drugs than stop."

Smith talked about how she read passages from "The Purpose Driven Life," the best-selling motivational book.

In a surprise, the author, Rick Warren, appeared on the show and talked about Smith's ordeal.

"There are two great stories in Ashley's life," he said. "One of them is, you don't have to be perfect to be used by God."

He said the other great story was that no matter how big your problems in life are, God's purpose is bigger.

New Drug Revelation

Smith did not tell authorities at the time that Nichols was taken into custody that she gave him drugs.

But investigators said she came clean about the drugs when they interviewed her months later. They said they have no plans to charge her with drug possession.

In her book, Smith says Nichols had her bound on her bed with masking tape and an extension cord. She says he asked for marijuana, but she did not have any, and she dug into her illegal stash of crystal meth instead.

Smith, a 27-year-old widowed mother who gained widespread praise for her level-headedness, says the seven-hour hostage ordeal in March led to the realization that she was a drug addict, and she says she has not used drugs since the night before she was taken captive.

"If I did die, I wasn't going to heaven and say, `Oh, excuse me, God. Let me wipe my nose, because I just did some drugs before I got here,"' Smith told the Augusta Chronicle.

Police said Nichols took Smith hostage in her apartment March 11 after a shooting rampage at the Atlanta courthouse.

During the ordeal, Smith says, she pulled out Rick Warren's book "The Purpose-Driven Life" and read to Nichols a chapter called "Using What God Gave Me" to gain his trust. Nichols later released her, and she called 911 and told authorities where to find him.

Nichols is accused of killing four people, including a judge, and could get the death penalty.

Since Nichols' arrest, Smith has received $70,000 in rewards and has been bombarded with offers for books, movies and speaking engagements. Her ordeal has been held up as an example of the redemptive power of faith.

"It's hard for people to understand the miracle of the story," she told the newspaper. "This was totally a God thing, to me in my life. This was God getting my attention, going, `I'm going to give you one more chance."'

Financial details of the book have not been released, but Smith pledged to donate an undisclosed portion of the book's proceeds to a memorial fund for the victims.

Calls to Nichols' attorneys were not immediately returned Tuesday. Prosecution spokesman Erik Friedly would not comment on the case.

Smith says in her book that as the night wore on -- after Nichols had snorted some of Smith's meth -- she tried to win Nichols' trust by talking about her faith in God and relating to him her personal stories.

She says she told him how her husband had died in her arms four years earlier after being stabbed during a brawl.

She writes that she asked Nichols if he wanted to see the danger of drugs and lifted up her tank top several inches to reveal a five-inch scar down the center of her torso -- the aftermath of a car wreck caused by drug-induced psychosis. She says she let go of the steering wheel when she heard a voice saying, "Let go and let God."

wsbtv.com Staff Writer Alfred Charles contributed to this report.