OPIOID HELL-O-WEAN
Jamie Lee bares horrors of addiction
Jamie Lee Curtis is a survivor — both on the big screen and in real life.
When she’s not narrowly escaping psycho Michael Myers, the “Halloween” star does everything she can to stay sober following a decades-long battle with opioid addiction.
“This,” Curtis said, “is a completely unexpected and astonishing moment in time for me.”
Opening up to People magazine, the actress, now 59, revealed that she never thought she’d live past 55.
“I was ahead of the curve of the opiate epidemic,” Curtis said. “I had a 10-year run, stealing, conniving. No one knew. No one.”
Now, with nearly 20 years of sobriety and a second smashhit “Halloween” at the box office 40 years after she starred in the 1978 original, the Hollywood scream queen is happier than ever.
“I’m breaking the cycle that has basically destroyed the lives of generations in my family,” she told People. “Without my sobriety none of this would be possible. It’s made all the difference.”
Curtis’ struggle with painkillers began in 1989 following a “minor plastic surgery” for her “hereditary puffy eyes,” she said.
“I remember that feeling of the pills washing over me and going, ‘This is crazy great. This is amazing,’ ” she recalled.
“I never did it while working. This is what I did at cocktail hour, at the end of the day. The rush of opiates was like the feeling of immersing myself in a warm bath.”
Curtis said she still goes to recovery meetings and struggles to stay sober every day, despite her rekindled success with the new “Halloween.”
“We’re here to relate to each other . . . We’re all trying to figure this out,” 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.”