Back to the Future‘s Christopher Lloyd is looking back on the years he spent addicted to cocaine and alcohol.
Lloyd, 88, reflected on his past substance abuse issues in his memoir, In My Own Time, which was published on Tuesday, October 27. According to Page Six, Lloyd wrote that he did his first “snort” of cocaine in the ’70s.
After meeting a woman earlier that night in a comedy club in Los Angeles, Lloyd followed her to her car and they “did a couple of lines.”
“That was all it took. I was hooked almost immediately,” he admitted. “I loved it, and that was where my cocaine abuse began.”
The actor soon found himself “entrenched” in cocaine, alcohol and marijuana use. Lloyd noted that he was never under the influence while performing on stage or filming a project.
“I wasn’t asking myself what it meant or what it was doing for me,” he wrote. “I just knew I liked it, and before long, it had a hold on me.”
Elsewhere in the book, Lloyd recalled an incident where he was drunk and high after Taxi was canceled in 1983. He got into an argument with his then-girlfriend and ultimately spent the night at his nephew’s home in L.A.
Lloyd came home to find himself locked out by his girlfriend, so he punched the windows.
“The next thing I remember, I was lying on the floor of my kitchen, bleeding out, and paramedics were attending to me,” he shared. “I later learned that I had lost so much blood that they had to give me plasma.”
Lloyd had to undergo surgery and physical therapy so he would be “able to spread [his] fingers correctly.” (Lloyd also found out that his Taxi costar Andy Kaufman died at the same hospital at age 35 following a battle with cancer.)
The Addams Family star entered treatment in 1993 and remained in rehab for five weeks.
“That was the beginning, but not the end of it,” Lloyd continued in his book. “I relapsed a few times after that. … Some years later on April 1, I got sober for what turned out to be the last time.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
