Jamie Lee Curtis Reflects On Her Past Substance Abuse
The 62-year-old A Fish Called Wanda and Knives Out star shared an Instagram post reflecting on her past substance abuse. Calling herself a “young star at war with herself,” Curtis added an old photo, seemingly from the early 1980s, in which she’s cradling a drink.
“A LONG Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far Awayy, I Was A Young STAR At WAR With Herself,” Curtis Wrote. “I Didn’t Know It Then. I Chased Everything. I Kept It Hidden. I Was As Sick As My Secrets. “With God’s Grace And The Support Of MANY People Who Could Relate To All The ‘Feelings’ And A Couple Of Sober Angels … I’ve Been Able To Stay Sober, One Day At A Time, For 22 Years,” She Added. “I Was A High Bottom, Pun Kind Of Intended, So The Rare Photo Of Me Proudly Drinking In A Photo Op Is Very Useful To Help Me Remember. To All Those Struggling And Those Who Are On The Path, “MY HAND IN YOURS.”
Curtis’s candid post was met with messages of support from followers, many of whom shared their own stories of fighting to get clean.
“Thank you for openly sharing,” read one comment. “Your story is relatable and encourages all of us. Thank you for living an authentic and inspirational life.”
“Thank you for working to remove the stigmas of recovery and addiction,” another fan wrote.
Curtis, the daughter of late Hollywood icons Tony Curtis (Some Like it Hot) and Janet Leigh (Psycho), was 40 when she attended her first recovery meeting in February 1999, according to an interview she gave to Variety in 2019.
“I had been nursing a secret Vicodin addiction for a very long time — over 10 years,” the actress said of a friend catching her downing a handful of pills along with some wine just months before that fateful meeting. Weeks later, she started stealing Vicodin pills prescribed to her injured sister Kelly. But reading an Esquire article about a painkiller addiction that February at last prompted her to get help — including coming clean to husband Christopher Guest for the first time — and she’s been sober ever since.
“I knew my dad had an issue because I had an issue and him and I shared drugs,” she told Variety of Tony Curtis, who abused alcohol, cocaine and heroin. “There was a period of time where I was the only child that was talking to him. I had six siblings. I have five. My brother, Nicholas, died of a heroin overdose when he was 21 years old. But I shared drugs with my dad. I did cocaine and freebased once with my dad. But that was the only time I did that, and I did that with him. He did end up getting sober for a short period of time and was very active in recovery for about three years. It didn’t last that long. But he found recovery for a minute.”
Curtis, who has attended recovery meetings around the world while filming on location, credits her own success to an unflinching self-awareness and a willingness to be open about her battle.
