ABC/Lou Rocco(LOS ANGELES) — Jamie Lee Curtis is opening up about the opioid addiction that nearly destroyed her life.
In a new cover story for People, the Halloween actress reveals that her addiction to pain pills began in the late ‘80s and lasted 10 years.
“I was ahead of the curve of the opiate epidemic,” she says. “I had a 10-year run, stealing, conniving. No one knew. No one.”
She says she was initially prescribed opiates after minor plastic surgery “for my hereditary puffy eyes” and soon began abusing the painkillers, even stealing pills from friends and family.
Finally, in 1999, she sought help and attended her first recovery meeting. She told her husband of 33 years, Christopher Guest, about her addiction that same day.
Curtis’ family has a long history of addiction. Her father, actor Tony Curtis, battled alcohol, cocaine and heroin addictions, and her half-brother Nicholas Curtis died of a heroin overdose in 1994.
“I’m breaking the cycle that has basically destroyed the lives of generations in my family,” Curtis says. “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.”
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