Jamie Lee Curtis, Now 22 Years Sober, Reflects on ‘Hidden’ Battle With Addiction
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Jamie Lee Curtis is 22 years sober. On Feb. 3, the 62-year-old actress took to Instagram to reflect on the past two decades without alcohol or drugs. In the post, Curtis shared a throwback photo of her holding a drink.
“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 [as] sick as my secrets,” she wrote in the caption.
“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 continued. “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 history with addiction began in 1989 after she underwent minor plastic surgery for “hereditary puffy eyes,” she told People. The star, whose father Tony also struggled with addiction and brother Nicholas died of a heroine overdose, was prescribed opiates.
“They gave me Vicodin as a painkiller for something that wasn’t really painful,” she told Variety in 2019. “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. It was that sort of late afternoon and early evening—I like to refer to it as the warm-bath feeling of an opiate. It’s like the way you naturally feel when your body is cool, and you step into a warm bath, and you sink into it. That’s the feeling for me, what an opiate gave me, and I chased that feeling for a long time.”
She also told People that no one knew of her “10-year run” with substance abuse for a long time, until her sister Kelly found out about her addiction in 1998. Curtis sought help in February 1999 by attending a recovery meeting and confiding in her husband, Christopher Guest.
“I’m breaking the cycle that has basically destroyed the lives of generations in my family,” she said. “Getting sober remains my single greatest accomplishment… bigger than my husband, bigger than both of my children and bigger than any work, success, failure. Anything.”
If you or someone you know is suffering from substance or alcohol abuse, call the free, confidential Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
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