Warning: This article contains discussion of substance abuse.
Jamie Lee Curtis recently shared why she’s “incredibly lucky” to be where she is today.
Earlier this year, the Oscar-winning actor celebrated 24 years of sobriety from opioid addiction — and she’s proud to discuss what the struggles throughout that journey meant for her career.
In a new interview on Morning Joe filmed before the SAG-AFTRA strike, the 64-year-old shared how through addiction and generational trauma, her "worst day was almost invisible to anyone else."
"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."
Jamie acknowledged she was grateful this wasn't where she ended up. "I am incredibly lucky that that wasn't my path," she said.
The Everything Everywhere All At Once star revealed that her sobriety brought her clarity. "I was an opiate addict, and I liked a good opiate buzz," she expressed. "And if fentanyl was available, as easily available as it is today on the street, I'd be dead. Sobriety just made it all crystal and clear."
"I've seen it in my own family. My brother, at 21, is dead from a heroin overdose — once he was clean and sober, and he went out and used one time."
In a 2018 interview with People, Jamie opened up about her family history and that her sobriety is 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," she said. "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."
"Getting sober remains my single greatest accomplishment," she expressed. "Bigger than my husband, bigger than both of my children, and bigger than any work, success, failure. Anything."
"I'm breaking the cycle that has basically destroyed the lives of generations in my family."
Check out Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota in Haunted Mansion — in theaters now.
