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07th May 2016
Actress Jamie Lee Curtis has opened up about her battle with drug addiction in a new powerful open letter. Her words come following reports that Prince may have had excessive traces of painkillers in his system at the time of his death. This has not been confirmed, however.
Curtis wants more to be done to raise awareness of the dangers of painkiller and opiate use.
The actress penned her?open letter?posted by the?Huffington Post in which she talked about her previous struggle with painkillers in light of the new reports about the death?of the iconic artist.
“I too, waited anxiously for a prescription to be filled for the opiate I was secretly addicted to,? the 57-year-old wrote. ?I too, took too many at once. I too, sought to kill the emotional and physical pain with painkillers. Kill it. Make it stop.?
“It seems now that the governmental body, the AMA, the FDA and the media are starting to address the rampant epidemic of opiate addiction,” the actress wrote. “There have been reclassifications and attempts at reigning in the overprescription of opiates.”
Curtis?acknowledged?how tough her journey had been, but said she was one of the lucky people who was able to break free from her addiction, 17 years, and counting.
“Most people who become addicted, like me, do so after a prescription for a painkiller following a medical procedure,” she wrote. “Once the phenomenon of craving sets in, it is often too late.”
She implored readers to be more vocal in order for change to happen.
“Let’s work harder, look closer and do everything we can not to enable and in doing so, disable, our loved ones who are ill,” she added.
This is not Curtis’ first time pointing out the dangers of opioids. It was after the’death of Michael Jackson in 2009 that the Halloween star first revealed she became addicted to painkillers following a cosmetic surgical procedure.
“The morphine becomes the warm bath from which to escape painful reality,” she wrote. “My recovery from drug addiction is the single greatest accomplishment of my life… but it takes work – hard, painful work – but the help is there, in every town and career, drug/drink freed members of society, from every single walk and talk of life to help and guide.”