Jamie Lee Curtis celebrated a remarkable sobriety milestone on Saturday.
The Halloween star, who revealed in 2018 that she had an opioid addiction for 10 years between 1989 and 1999, revealed that she has been “clean and sober for 25 years.”
‘One day at a time. 9,125 of them. What’s inside, as my old friend Adam sang, is a sense of calm, serenity, purpose and the greatest sense that I am not alone,” the Oscar winner, 65, wrote in the caption of the black-and-white photo.
She continued, “That many others share the same disease and solution. For all those who struggle with addiction and shame, there are others who care. My hand in yours. Our hands in yours. XO JLC.”
Jamie Lee Curtis celebrated a remarkable sobriety milestone on Saturday
She shared a photo of herself holding a silver ring, with the inscription ‘JLC TWENTY FIVE’ around it.
A number of celebrity friends, including Michelle Pfeiffer and Maria Shriver, sent their well-wishes under Curtis’ post, which received more than 69,944 likes in just a few hours.
In July, the performer said she considers herself “lucky” not to have gone to jail over her drug battle in an emotional conversation on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
“I was an opiate addict and I liked to get opiate buzz,” she said. “And if fentanyl were available, as easily available as it is now on the streets, I would be dead.”
It only takes a small dose of fentanyl to cause an overdose. Just two milligrams – the equivalent of five grains of salt – is enough to cause death.
Fentanyl was originally developed in Belgium in the 1950s to help cancer patients with pain management.
Given its extreme potency, it has become popular among recreational drug users.
Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl rose from nearly 10,000 in 2015 to nearly 20,000 in 2016, surpassing regular opioid painkillers and heroin for the first time.
The Halloween star, who revealed in 2018 that she had an opioid addiction for ten years between 1989 and 1999, revealed that she has been ‘clean and sober for 25 years’ (seen in April 2023)
The ultra-strong opioid that was cut with virtually every street drug in the country killed a record 75,000 Americans in 2021, the equivalent of 1,500 lives lost every week.
Because it is in other popular medications, many people who die from an overdose do not know they are taking fentanyl. Fentanyl is partly blamed for the sharp decline in life expectancy in America over the past three years.
Curtis, who credits her sobriety to consistent encounters, said she considers herself “incredibly lucky” not to end up in prison as her life “led there.”
She said: ‘My worst day was almost invisible to anyone else. I have never been arrested. “I haven’t made any terrible decisions on a high or under the influence that I will regret for the rest of my life.”
‘There are women in prison whose lives have been destroyed by drugs and alcohol – not because they were violent criminals, not because they were terrible people, but because they were addicted. And I’m incredibly lucky that that wasn’t my path. I was on my way there.”
‘One day at a time. 9,125 of them. What’s inside, as my old friend Adam sang, is a sense of calm, serenity, purpose and the greatest sense that I am not alone,” the Oscar winner, 65, wrote, captioning the black-and-white photo (pictured last year)
The star’s half-brother, Nicholas Curtis, died of a heroin overdose in 1994 at the age of 23.
Her father Tony Curtis – best known for co-starring with Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot – also had addiction problems.
He started abusing alcohol, cocaine and heroin and was very open about his struggles; he passed away in 2010.
Speaking about Nicholas’ death, she said: ‘He was clean and sober, and he went out and used it once and died of an overdose.
“And he’s one of the millions and millions of people whose lives have been ruined by addiction.”
In 2018, Curtis revealed for the first time that she had had an opioid addiction for 10 years, she said People. “I was at the forefront of the opiate epidemic,” she said. ‘I spent ten years running, stealing and sneaking. Nobody knew. No one.’
Curtis previously told People that “getting sober” remains her “greatest achievement” (seen in March 2023 after winning her first Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once)
The addiction started in 1989 when she was prescribed opiates after minor plastic surgery ‘for my hereditary swollen eyes’.
And then she rushed to keep her addiction going, often stealing pills from friends.
During that time, she made blockbusters such as 1994’s True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
No one knew until her sister found out in 1998.
The next year, Jamie went to a “recovery meeting” and told her husband.
“I’m breaking the cycle that has essentially destroyed the lives of generations in my family,” Curtis said.
“Getting sober remains my greatest achievement… bigger than my husband, bigger than both of my children and bigger than any work, success or failure. Something.’
