After originally meeting on the set of 1987’s sci-fi comedy “Innerspace,” Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan started dating after reuniting for the 1988 movie “D.O.A.” — which co-starred Charlotte Rampling and Daniel Stern. However, the couple’s plans to wed in 1990 were put on hold after Quaid admitted to Ryan that he’d been taking drugs on a regular basis.
“Basically, I was addicted to cocaine and Meg didn’t know it,” Quaid told the Sunday Mercury in 1999. “That’s how good an addict is at hiding his problem. Because we were going to get married and I was tired of living that way, I decided she should know.” He went to rehab in 1990, and the couple postponed their wedding until the following year, tying the knot on Valentine’s Day. During a 2018 interview with The Sunday Times, Quaid was frank about his excessive drug use during the 1980s, telling the publication, “I would do coke and I would use alcohol to come down.” Of the former, he continued, “I was doing about two grams a day.” As for how he finally managed to get sober, Quaid recalled having a spiritual epiphany of sorts, which convinced him to finally attend rehab: “I had one of those white-light experiences where I saw myself being dead and losing everything I had worked for my whole life.”
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For her part, and following Quaid’s journey toward sobriety, Ryan told The New York Times Magazine of portraying someone struggling with alcoholism in 1994’s “When a Man Loves a Woman,” “It gave me empathy. It was a cathartic role.”
If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
