In a recent interview, Jamie Lee Curtis boldly shared the details of her sobriety struggle.
The 64-year-old actress spoke out about her battle with opioid addiction on the Morning Joe, saying she felt “incredibly lucky” to have won the battle 24 years ago.
During the conversation, Curtis spoke candidly about how people largely ignored some of her darkest periods. “My worst day was almost invisible to anyone else,” she admitted.
“I’m lucky. I didn’t make terrible decisions high or under the influence that then, for the rest of my life, I regret,” she revealed. “There are women in prison whose lives have been shattered by drugs and alcohol, not because they were violent felons, not because they were horrible people, but because they were addicts.”
She added: “I am incredibly lucky that that wasn’t my path.”
The Oscar-winning actress, who acknowledged to being an opiate addict who enjoyed the “opiate buzz,” found clarity and a fresh perspective after becoming sober. She also disclosed “if fentanyl was available, as easily available as it is today on the street, I’d be dead.”
She continued abusing drugs until 1999, during which time she secretly led a double life of theft and plotting. However, she has later claimed that achieving sobriety was her greatest accomplishment since it has allowed her to living a “incredible life.”
Curtis said her sobriety has been “the key to freedom, the freedom to be me, to not be looking in the mirror in the reflection and trying to see somebody else.”
She continued: “I look in the mirror. I see myself. I accept myself. And I move on because you know what? The world is filled with things we need to do. I’m breaking the cycle that has basically destroyed the lives of generations in my family.”
Curtis experienced the tragic death of her brother Nicholas, who overdosed on drugs at the age of 21 and passed away. Actor Tony Curtis, her father, battled alcohol and drug addiction.
“Getting sober remains my single greatest accomplishment,” she admitted. “Bigger than my husband, bigger than both of my children and bigger than any work, success, failure. Anything.”