No More 12 Step: Surprising Addictions

Sadly, it’s not exactly surprising to hear of a famous person with a drug or alcohol addiction nowadays. Sometimes the stories end with rehabilitation and a rousing second act, but too often these tales end in tragedy.

In some cases, though, the addiction is downright surprising either because of the person involved or because of the poison of choice. With that in mind, here are 12 famous historic figures, from philanthropists to scientists to movie stars, with surprising addictions.

SuprisingDRUG AND ALCOHOL ADDICTIONS


STEPHEN KINGStephen King is world renowned for his horror novels and movie adaptations that have struck fear into viewers for decades. What some fans may not know is King was on such an intense drug binge for one period of his life that he doesn’t even remember writing during that time!

King spent a large portion of the 1980s on an extended drug and alcohol binge that altered his mental state to the point that he cannot remember writing many of his books during that time, even to this very day. For the record, some of his more famous works from the 80s include Cujo, Pet Sematary, It and Misery.

The author imbibed on cocaine that was freely available at Hollywood parties after his books turned into movies. But shortly after the King published Cujo, his family and friends held an intervention for him. They took beer cans, cigarettes, cocaine, Xanax, Valium, Nyquil, cough medicine and marijuana from his office and poured them on the rug in front of him. King wrote in his memoir that he then got help, quit all drugs and alcohol in the late 1980s and has stayed sober since that time.


SIGMUND FREUDThe creator of psychoanalysis was actually an avid cocaine user but, as one might expect from a brilliant man of science, his interest was at first medical. He wrote countless papers on the effects of the drug.

Freud’s friend, Ernest von Fleischl, had a taste for morphine, so Freud prescribed cocaine as a safe alternative. He documented the increasingly horrible side effects on his friend until he reportedly became the first person to die from a speedball when he mixed heroin and cocaine in 1891. Freud, on the other hand, was a casual user but he hit the drug pretty hard in the mid-1880s. He eventually stopped using the drug in 1896.


STEVE JOBSThe Apple patriarch brought us the iPhone and the Mac computer, but not everyone knows that he was a major LSD user. In fact, Jobs once called his experiments with LSD in the 1972 to 1974 “one of the two or three most important things” he ever did in his life. He said he used the drug 10 to 15 times and then stopped after 1974.

In his biography, Jobs even took a shot at Microsoft’s Bill Gates when he tied his lack of drug use to his lack of imagination.

“Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas. He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.”


ROBERT DOWNEY JR.Robert Downey Jr.’s substance abuse problems are well documented, as he was arrested in 1987 and numerous times in 1996 for drug possession. The actor went to rehab for his cocaine addiction multiple times and eventually made significant progress around 2002. But the actor’s career didn’t truly resurge until 2008 when he starred in Iron Man and Tropic Thunder.

He is now a fixture of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and has helped the franchise gross more than $2.6 billion.


ANGELINA JOLIEAngelina Jolie has always been an intriguing Hollywood figure, but the actress finally made her drug abuse struggles public in 2011. Thankfully, her issues were well behind her by that point.A man who claimed to be her drug dealer said Jolie bought cocaine from him two or three times a week when she was in her early 20s.

But based on all evidence, the actress is now completely clean and has put her drug problems well behind her.


WHITNEY HOUSTONWhitney Houston died far too young at age 48 due to drug abuse. The power-house singer was found unconscious in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Feb. 11, 2012 and was pronounced dead a few hours later.

The medical examiner determined a combination of heart disease and cocaine caused her death.


JOHN BELUSHIJohn Belushi was one of the funniest actors in Hollywood in the 1970s with roles on Saturday Night Live and Animal House. Unfortunately,

his drug use also led to an extremely early death at age 33.

The actor’s cocaine abuse is well known, and stories maintain that one of his favorite games was “Cocaine Chicken.” He and a friend would pour a long line of the white powder and then see who could snort the most before reaching the middle of the line.


OPRAH WINFREYOprah Winfrey is one of the richest and most generous women in the world, but she actually had a cocaine addiction in her 20s when she dated a man who introduced her to crack cocaine.

“I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t have done for that man,” Oprah said when she candidly revealed her drug use on her show in 1995. In another interview in 2005, Oprah said she realized her addiction was to the boyfriend, not the drugs.


BOB DYLANBob Dylan is one of the most legendary singer-songwriters of the past 50 years, and many people know he was a frequent marijuana smoker. But Dylan also had a relatively serious heroin addiction in his younger days on the streets of Greenwich Village in New York City in the 1960s.

“I kicked a heroin habit in New York City,” Dylan said in a recently uncovered 1966 interview. “I got very, very strung out for a while. I mean really, very strung out. And I kicked the habit. I had about a $25-a-day habit and I kicked it.”


CHARLIE WATTSRolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts largely stayed away from drugs and groupies due to his marriage, but he eventually dabbled in drug and alcohol usage just like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood.

Watts plunged into heroin and alcohol addiction in the 1980s at the same time he started having family issues. “Looking back on it, I think it was a mid-life crisis,” he later said. “All I know is that I became totally another person around 1983 and came out of it about 1986. I nearly lost my wife and everything over my behavior.”


ANDY WARHOLPainter Andy Warhol, famous for his Campbell’s Soup Cans work, had an addiction to Obetrol, marketed today as Adderall. The difference between the two is the time it takes for the drug to kick in; Adderral is made in both immediate-release and delayed-release forms, while Obetrol only has immediate release. And Warhol took the latter like he was eating M&Ms!

Reports conflict about Warhol’s use of the drug. Some say he eventually stopped in the late 1960s, while Brigid Berlin told Bob Colacello after Warhol’s death in 1987 that he took one or two Obetrols a day up until the day he died.


LEWIS CARROLLThe man who brought us Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland had an addiction to opium, though it was called Laudanum in the 1800s when people used it for even minor problems such as headaches. Carroll suffered from awful migraines, and some people thought he took the drug because it calmed him and helped with his stutter.

Carroll also dabbled in mushrooms and marijuana. Some have speculated that Carroll’s drug use helped inspire Alice in Wonderland and that the book contains references to drugs.


BEN FRANKLINBen Franklin is one of the most instrumental figures in early American history, but he also suffered from a bladder stone late in life that caused him to turn to opium.

Reports maintain Franklin was addicted to the drug in the final years of his life.

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