)
Following a cosmetic surgery procedure, Curtis was prescribed Vicodin, which she soon became addicted to. Later, when her sister Kelly was injured and prescribed the same drug, Curtis began to steal her pills for her own consumption it was only when a close friend witnessed her sneaking the pills with alcohol that she was found out.
Curtis explained that she was able to keep her addictive behavior hidden for a long time by controlling the timeframes when she would use. "I was the wildly controlled drug addict and alcoholic," she said. "I never did it when I worked. I never took drugs before 5 p.m. I never, ever took painkillers at 10 in the morning. It was that sort of late afternoon and early evening I like to refer to it as the warm-bath feeling of an opiate. Its like the way you naturally feel when your body is cool, and you step into a warm bath, and you sink into it. Thats the feeling for me, what an opiate gave me, and I chased that feeling for a long time."
When Curtis first started going to meetings, she recalled feeling "terrified" that people would judge her, or leak information about her addiction to the press, but instead found a culture of support that made the process of recovery easier. She also spoke out against the stigma and silence that continue to surround issues like addiction, preventing people from getting the help they need.
"Because the secret, the shameful secret, is the reason why it is such a pervasive illness in our industry in every industry, in every socioeconomic stratum, in every country in the world," she said. "It is the secret shame that keeps people locked up in their disease."
)
)
)
Curtis has since attempted to shatter that stigma and foster an environment of communication and mutual support wherever she goes, and with whomever she works with because she knows how many people this illness affects, and how many people suffer in silence. ( Opioid addiction has become an increasingly high profile health concern in the United States, with more than 30,000 Americans dying from overdoses each year.)
"I have attended recovery meetings all over this world," she said. "I was probably about nine months sober when I made Freaky Friday. I put a big sign up by the catering truck, and it said, 'Recovery meeting in Jamies trailer every day.' I left the door open and didnt know if anybody would show up. We ended up calling it the Mobile Home Recovery Meeting. It was probably my favorite grouping of sobriety that Ive ever participated in. Ive participated in groups all over the world, but there was something about the cross section of ages and genders and jobs and races, and it was profound."