Jamie Lee Curtis has officially been sober for 25 years.
“One day at a time. 9,125 of them,” the actor wrote on Instagram Feb. 3 to caption a black-and-white photo of herself holding up a ring inscribed with, “JLC Twenty Five."
“What’s inside, as my old friend Adam sang, is a sense of calm, serenity, purpose and the greatest feeling that I am not alone. That many others share the same disease and solution. For all those struggling with addiction and shame, there are others out here who care. My hand in yours. Our hands in yours. XO JLC,” she wrote.
Curtis, who turned 65 in November, recently reflected on the life lessons she's learned tied to the milestone birthday and sobriety anniversary.
The actor, who won her first Academy Award in 2023 for her role in “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” said on TODAY that she finally owns what she thinks and feels, very much accepts what she looks like and is much less hard on herself.
“I’m sober for a long time, long time — almost 25 years. And the best thing I learned last year in recovery was people aren’t pleased when you stop people-pleasing. ... It was as if the greatest sage arrived on me,” Curtis told TODAY’s Hoda Kotb in an interview that aired on Jan. 16.
“So I’m trying to own it. Isn’t that what life is supposed to be? We grow up, we learn, we do all these things. Now we have to own it. We have to own who we are, be who we are, and be in full acceptance of who we are and what we’re not. And I think that’s the beauty of me right now — owning it.”
Curtis has been open about becoming addicted to opiates in the late 1980s after she received a prescription for pain killers following minor plastic surgery for her eyes.
“I was ahead of the curve of the opiate epidemic,” she told People in 2018. “I had a 10-year run, stealing, conniving. No one knew. No one.”
In a 2023 interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Curtis recalled how she “liked a good opiate buzz” and said that if fentanyl were as easily available then as it is today on the street, she’d be dead. Her brother Nicholas died at 21 of a heroin overdose, she noted.
Curtis was addicted for a decade until she got sober in 1999.
Turning 65 has been a moment of reflection and excitement for the star, who called it a creative time in her life.
Today, she continues to act and is the author of a new children’s book about patience titled, “Just One More Sleep.” Children are all about the future, Curtis said, but she’s focusing on the present moment, and being authentic and real.
“I say what I mean, I mean what I say and I try not to say it mean,” she noted.
“When you sit in someone’s presence and you feel what I feel when I’m sitting next to you, you are so authentic and so real,” Hoda agreed.
