Dennis Quaid on past cocaine addiction: ‘I saw myself either dead or in jail’

2023-07-26

dennis quaid

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Dennis Quaid was on the verge of hitting rock bottom amid his cocaine addiction 30 years ago.

“I remember going home and having kind of a white light experience that I saw myself either dead or in jail or losing everything I had, and I didn’t want that,” the “Parent Trap” star told People for this week’s cover story, published Wednesday.

Quaid, now 69, said his struggles had become so bad that his band got a record deal, but they broke up because he was “not reliable.”

This is not the first time the movie star has opened up about his dark past.

In 2018, he revealed he used up to two grams of coke a day during the 1980s when his career was on the rise.

“I liked coke. I liked it to go out,” he told the Sunday Times.

Seven years prior to that admission, the “Great Balls of Fire!” star alleged that cocaine was actually factored into movie budgets and used as “petty cash” in Tinseltown.

However, Quaid decided to go to rehab — or as he reportedly calls it “cocaine school”– in 1990 to overcome his substance abuse issues.

When he got out, the “On a Wing and a Prayer” star turned to his faith to “fill that hole” that is left when an addict is “done with addiction.”

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“That’s when I started developing a personal relationship,” he told People in his new interview. “Before that, I didn’t have one, even though I grew up as a Christian.”

Quaid began reading the Bible, the Quran, other religious texts and even wrote the faith-based song “On My Way to Heaven” in 1990 following his newfound spirituality.

The track was also a song for his mother, Juanita Jordan, to “let her know I was OK, because I wasn’t OK before then.”

“I’m grateful to still be here, I’m grateful to be alive really every day,” Quaid also said, reflecting on his past struggles.

“It’s important to really enjoy your ride in life as much as you can, because there’s a lot of challenges and stuff to knock it down.”

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