Tatum O'Neal at The Cinema Society and GQ Hosted Screening of "Stop-Loss" on March 20, 2008 in New York City.
Brian Ach/WireImage.com

CelebNews@Usmagazine.com! - Tatum O'Neal Sentenced to Drug Program

Tatum O'Neal pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct on Wednesday after trying to buy crack cocaine last month.

The actress, 44, was ordered to spend two half-day sessions in a drug treatment program and pay a $95 surcharge, the Associated Press reports.

If she meets those conditions when she returns to court September 4, her case will be dismissed.

O'Neal was arrested June 1 for trying to buy the drugs near her NYC apartment.

The former child star (and recovering addict) blamed her close relapse on the death of her 16-year-old Scottish terrier.

"I was going to my psychiatrist," she said. "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."

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!"

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