Jamie Lee Curtis counts herself as “incredibly lucky” as she reflects on her 24 years of sobriety, attributing her gratitude to the fact that her struggles with opioid addiction remained largely concealed from others.
In a recent interview on Morning Joe, recorded prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike, the Oscar winner revealed that her “worst day” went unnoticed by those around her.
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“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 shared. Curtis emphasized the plight of women who, unlike her, ended up in prison due to drug and alcohol dependencies, without being inherently violent or malicious individuals, but rather victims of addiction.
“I am incredibly lucky that that wasn’t my path,” she added.
At 64 years old, Jamie Lee Curtis underscored the transformative power of sobriety in her life, describing how it brought clarity and certainty. “I was an opiate addict, and I liked a good opiate buzz,” she shared. “And if fentanyl was available, as easily available as it is today on the street, I’d be dead.”
Her battle with addiction persisted until 1999, during which time she navigated a decade of secrecy, stealing, and manipulation without anyone’s knowledge. “I had a 10-year run, stealing, conniving. No one knew. No one,” she said.
Jamie Lee Curtis, celebrated actress known for ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, and a devoted mother of two daughters with her screenwriter husband Christopher Guest, recognized that her journey to sobriety has paved the way for an “incredible life.”
In the same interview, she expressed that her sobriety stands as her “greatest accomplishment.”
“My 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,” shared the Halloween actress. “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,” she said. With a family history marked by addiction, including the tragic death of her brother Nicholas from a heroin overdose at 21 and her father Tony Curtis’ struggles with alcohol, cocaine, and heroin, Jamie Lee Curtis is resolute in her pursuit of a sober life.
She boldly declares, “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.”