NEED TO KNOW
Jason Biggs opened up about his struggle with drugs and alcohol during the height of his career while living in Los Angeles
The American Pie star recalled climbing into the trash can to retrieve cocaine he had already thrown away
He said he was able to get his health on track after moving to New York, and has been sober since 2017
Jason Biggs is sharing one of his “craziest stories” with addiction, and the moment he climbed into a trash can to snort cocaine.
The 47-year-old actor appeared on the June 4 episode of the Well with Arielle Lorre podcast and opened up about the height of his drug and alcohol addiction.
Following the success of American Pie early in his career, Biggs said that with fame, he “learned very quickly” how rare it was for people to say no to him while he was living in Los Angeles, which escalated his substance abuse.
“Being 22 with money in the bank and coke in my pocket and no one saying no to me,” he said.
Biggs told Lorre that when he met and married his wife Jenny Mollen, he was using drugs and drinking alcohol much more than she knew. He was “blocking everything out with drugs and alcohol… and it just got worse and worse.”
The Orange Is the New Black actor then recalled one of the lowest points of his addiction.
“I lived in the gray area, but I have ‘snorting dust off the floor’ stories or similar to that,” he began. “One of my craziest stories was, I was doing cocaine by myself in my house, and I did what I said was the last line.”
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Jason Biggs
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Biggs said it was 4 a.m. and Mollen was asleep. In an attempt to stop himself and go back to bed, he threw the drugs into the trash can.
“Within 15 minutes, as soon as my last bump is wearing off, I’m like, what am I doing? I go into my trash, and I take it out and I do a line,” he said.
In another attempt to stop, Biggs said he went outside and put the rest of the cocaine into the trash can in front of their house. “OK, I’m done,” he told himself before going back inside and grabbing an Ambien to help him sleep.
“Before I took the Ambien, I was like, ‘One more,’” he said. “I went outside and I climbed into the trash bin and got the bag of coke and went upstairs and did another line. I was like, ‘What the f— am I doing? This is absolutely insane.’”
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Jason Biggs
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Biggs said that he constantly struggled with sobriety while living in Los Angeles.
“I would find myself alone and isolating and I would find myself breaking whatever sobriety I had. It was incredibly fragile, obviously, in those early days,” he said.
Biggs explained that despite having met some great people in L.A., living there wasn’t good for his health, and the environment made his drinking worse. He said moving to New York was life-changing and a “healthier place” for him to get his life on track.
“There’s something about the energy of New York that gives me something, that fills me in a way that Los Angeles couldn’t. But I do believe coming to New York helped me. So, I did fall off the wagon here, but that was seven and a half years ago and it’s been going well.”
Biggs has been sober since 2017 and shared his first anniversary of sobriety on Instagram in October 2018.
“I first tried to get sober over 5 years ago, when the weight of my obsession with booze and drugs became too heavy for me to handle,” he wrote alongside a photo of a silver coin that read, “To thine own self be true” and has the engraved words “unity, service, recovery.”
“Turns out this s— is hard,” he said at the time. “After some fits and starts, I’ve managed to put together one year of sobriety. I’m as proud of it as anything in my life.”
Biggs concluded by encouraging those who are also battling addiction not to give up. “If you’re struggling, know there’s help,” the star wrote. “Don’t be ashamed. We can do this. 💪🙏.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
Read the original article on People
