I was walking up the street a few blocks from the Plaza around 17 p.m. when I met someone I whom I used to be involved in drugs with years ago. Without a second's notice he took out some stuff and he was saying, "Hey, man, how are you doing? I saw you in a movie. Where are you staying?" There was a part of me that knew I should run. Instead I said, "Let's go up to my hotel room." I wasn't thinking about my family or my sobriety or my career. When you see the drug, you don't think about anything else. We went back to my room and started using. Then he left, leaving me with some. I had a very bad reaction to it, and I'm unclear about how the people in the hotel found me. When I woke up in the hospital, I was very foggy. There were tubes and wires coming out of me. My body hurt. I hadn't taken a bath or a shower in a couple of days. I felt very depressed that I had allowed this to happen.
As more details came to me I realized I was in legal trouble and that the press was involved. But mostly I started thinking about my children. I was very remorseful. At the hospital my family was supportive and yet they were guarded. They looked at me and said, "Let's just see what he's going to do," instead of jumping in and taking me by the hand and bringing me to a 12-step program. Some people argue that addiction is genetic. There have been members of my family from past generations who have had alcohol problems. And most addicts, myself included, have issues from their childhood or the present that they don't want to face. But as far as I'm concerned, these are escape issues.
Cocaine is very powerful. It shuts out every other issue, all other thoughts. I'm very intense about my thoughts. I'm constantly going through each layer and tearing things down to try to get to the core. Also, I have a temper—not a short one. I have a long, long fuse, but when it goes, it goes in a big way. Sometimes I go mentally to really dark places. Cocaine shuts out a lot of that. The irony is, with the exception of the first few times I was high, I was really miserable doing coke—and yet I still did it.
What happened that night at the Plaza is: I had become complacent in my sobriety for a few months. I hadn't been going to as many meetings of my 12-step program. It Had to Be You was the first movie I did in eight months where I didn't bring my "sober assistant" with me. My friends in the program have asked me, "Don't you think you were subconsciously putting your-self in a position to relapse?" I have to agree. I don't think there was a time when I said, "Oh, I really want to get away from everyone so I can go get high." But I made some foolish decisions before I even got to the Plaza hotel.
Afterward I had to face up to what I had done. Isabella came to take me back home. She was very guarded and disappointed. She's been down this road with me before. Isabella and I met in 1993 on Homicide: Life on the Street, where on one occasion I lost my sobriety. That was foreign to her. She'd never been with someone who had a drug or alcohol problem. I remember calling her one time and saying, "I went out," and she said, "You went out? Where did you go?" To substance abusers, "I went out" means "I lost my sobriety." I don't think she realized what that meant and how serious it was.
But she found out. About two years ago, shortly after Atticus was born—he was more than three months premature—I relapsed. He was in the hospital for months and had six surgeries. I buckled under that pressure. I went into rehab and afterward went into a sober-living house. I would go from the sober-living house to see my son in the hospital. It was a very hard time. But I stayed sober until New York. With this relapse I really hurt my relationships—with my brothers, my sisters, my mother and my agent, Allison Brand. It's not that she doesn't believe in me or doesn't care. But it's an uphill climb when there's a project that I'm right for, and she mentions my name, and they say, "What about that bizarre thing in New York?" Still, the hardest part was not the damage to my marketability—but to be able to look these people in the eye and say I was sorry.
As soon as I got back to California I started going to a doctor, doing voluntary urine tests every week. I wanted there to be no doubt in anyone's mind that I was clean. I also see a drug and alcohol psychiatrist. The one thing I've learned this time is that I can't do it alone. Before I'd been very unwilling to ask for help. I'm more open to things now because I've given up the idea I know everything. What happened in New York was a humbling experience. It doesn't get much worse than having someone slide a catheter in you while your family members stand around wondering whether or not you're going to live. I never want to have to do this again. I don't want to have to face my family like this again.
My son Atticus is the center of my universe. He is one of the great things in my life I could lose if I don't remain sober. Another is my career. I make a really comfortable living doing what I love to do. Not many people can say that. Still, this time around the sobriety is not for my job. It is for me. I really don't care about what I cared about four or five years ago—that is, "Are people noticing me? Am I gonna be a big star?" It's just nice to be able to say that my relationship with my family is healing; we're going back to a place where we are all really close. I'm going to lose that if I don't stay sober. It would be such a waste. This one's for me.
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