Jamie Lee Curtis has been sober for over 20 years – but as many addicts will tell you, it's a battle you have to face one day at a time.
The True Lies star has opened up about her reliance on drugs and alcohol in the past, telling Variety's The Recovery Issue in November 2019 that her sister once told her: "You are an addict and I love you, but I am not going to watch you die," after Jamie admitted she had stolen her pain medication.
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Chatting to HELLO! at JLGB's Virtual online event at the beginning of February, alongside her husband Christopher Guest, the award-winning star touched upon her struggles with substance abuse as well as her family's, and how she overcame it.
"My recovery is the single greatest accomplishment that I will ever get to do in this human life," she said. "I have a generational link to addiction and substance abuse in my family and I was able to catch it, look in the mirror, understand the problem and I have been clean and sober for 22 years."
Addiction ran in her family and her brother Nicholas sadly died from a heroin overdose at age 21 in 1994. Her father Tony Curtis was also into drugs and Jamie even admitted doing cocaine with him too.
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© Photo: Getty ImagesJamie's husband, Christopher, and her family have been a huge support
But speaking to Variety, Jamie said she was a "controlled drug addict".
"I was the wildly controlled drug addict and alcoholic. I never did it when I worked. I never took drugs before 5 p.m. I never, ever took painkillers at 10 in the morning," she once said.
"It was that sort of late afternoon and early evening — I like to refer to it as the warm-bath feeling of an opiate. I chased that feeling for a long time."
Jamie marked her 22-year sober anniversary this year with a proud and poignant message in a bid to help others struggling with addiction.
Jamie shared this throwback image to mark 22 years of sobriety
Sharing a fresh-faced throwback image of herself with a bottle of tequila, she penned on Instagram: "A LONG time ago… In a galaxy far, far away… I was a young STAR at WAR with herself. I didn't know it then. I chased everything. I kept it hidden. I was a 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.
"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."
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