Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis has celebrated 22 years of sobriety with an emotional Instagram post this week.
On Wednesday (February 3), the 62-year-old Halloween actress took to her official Instagram account to share a baby-faced throwback photograph of herself with her three million followers and spoke candidly about her past struggles with addiction in a candid caption.
Curtis wrote:
"A LONG time ago… In a galaxy far, far away… I was a young STAR at WAR with herself. I didn't know it then. I chased everything. I kept it hidden. I was [as] sick as my secrets.
"With God's grace and the support of MANY people who could relate to all the 'feelings' and a couple of sober angels... I've been able to stay sober, one day at a time, for 22 years.
"I was a high bottom, pun kind of intended, so the rare photo of me proudly drinking in a photo op is very useful to help me remember. To all those struggling and those who are on the path… MY HAND IN YOURS. [sic]."
The actress's post has since accrued over 115,000 likes and more than 2,100 comments from her fans as of the time of writing.
For instance, one person wrote: "You're a wonderful person. I appreciate you greatly."
Another chimed in: "So much love for you."
Meanwhile, someone else added: "Well done and congrats! Yesterday I celebrated 6 months sober! [sic]"
In a 2019 interview with Variety, the star spoke about how she was motivated to deal with her substance abuse problems at the age of 40 in February of 1999.
Curtis stated: "I had been nursing a secret Vicodin addiction for a very long time — over 10 years.
"I was the wildly controlled drug addict and alcoholic. I never did it when I worked. I never took drugs before 5 p.m. I never ever took painkillers at 10 in the morning.
"It was that sort of late afternoon and early evening — I like to refer to it as the warm-bath feeling of an opiate. It’s like the way you naturally feel when your body is cool, and you step into a warm bath, and you sink into it.
"That’s the feeling for me, what an opiate gave me, and I chased that feeling for a long time."
She continued: "I also drank too much in a very controlled way, in a very Jamie way. It is the only disease that is self-diagnosed. No one else can actually tell you you’re an alcoholic.
"They can tell you that you drink too much or in their opinion that you drink too much or that when you drink too much, it really makes them angry.
“But to call yourself an alcoholic or a drug addict is a badge of honor. It is a way of acknowledging something that is a profound statement and can be, for many people, life-changing.
"Because the secret, the shameful secret, is the reason why it is such a pervasive illness in our industry — in every industry, in every socioeconomic stratum, in every country in the world. It is the secret shame that keeps people locked up in their disease."