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Tatum O'Neal on Drug Bust: My Dog's Death "Set Me Off"
Former child star (and recovering addict) Tatum O'Neal says the death of her 16-year-old Scottish terrier almost caused her to relapse.
"There's no excuse for what I did," the 44-year-old actress — who was arrested after allegedly buying crack and cocaine Sunday in NYC — told the New York Post on Monday, the day of her arraignment.
Three weeks ago, O'Neal said, "I lost my Scottish terrier, Lena. That seemed to set me off.
"She got old. She got cancer. She was the fabric of our family. We had to let her go to heaven. My daughter and I had to put her down. It was too horrible for words.
"I couldn't get out of it," O'Neal said. "I was going to my psychiatrist. I was doing everything I could do. I have the disease of alcoholism. It's lifelong. I treat it every day by going to my 12-step program."
The dog's death, she said, "triggered that my mother passed away [from addiction] in '98. My father [actor Ryan O'Neal] and I are estranged."
Also not helping matters: She and her beau, architect Ron Castellano, took a "little break." (Still, Castellano picked her up from court Monday. "He's a saint," she said.)
In a funk, she said she had met Alan Garcia, "a drug addict who was panhandling.
"One day, I'm walking aimlessly," O'Neal said. "I found myself doing the wrong thing."
O'Neal — who detailed her struggles with addiction in her 2004 memoir, A Paper Life, and completed rehab in 1996 — thanked police for preventing her from relapsing.
"I'm still sober!" she insisted. "Just when I was about to change that and wreck my life, the cops came and saved me!
"I'm eternally grateful, as sort of grim as the situation was, that I didn't get to do what my disease was telling me to do," she went on. "I'm still going to get my year on July 10!"
(She also said she would like to help the man who sold her the drugs.)
O'Neal said her ex husband John McEnroe — with whom she has three kids — phoned her, but she hadn't yet spoken to him.
"He might make seeing my 17-year-old difficult," she said, but stressed she and McEnroe have a cordial relationship.
Next up for a O'Neal: A Lifetime movie, set to air August. 2.
"Hopefully," she said, "this isn't going to kill everything."
Her colleagues have no doubt she can turn her life around.
"She's a lovely person," Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell told Usmagazine.com at Monday's CFDA Awards in New York City. "I hope she's fine. She's a great girl."
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MsSissy
xoxoxo
Member since 3/07 39159 total posts
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Re: Tatum O'Neal on Drug Bust: My Dog's Death "Set Me Off"
OH PLEASE!
For someone who admits "there is no excuse for what I did", she sure lists a lot of excuses.
Message edited 6/3/2008 9:44:03 AM.
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