Dennis Quaid says he’s ‘physically recovered from’ years of cocaine addiction… and reflects on getting clean in his new gospel album
Dennis Quaid says he’s ‘physically recovered from’ years of cocaine addiction… and reflects on getting clean in his new gospel album
- Quaid, 69, was once addicted to cocaine but has been sober since 1990
- He said it took him years to “physically” recover from the effects of his addiction
- The actor shared that a “higher power” played a part in his journey to sobriety
Dennis Quaid says he’s channeled the life lessons he learned getting sober into content for his new gospel album.
The veteran actor, 69, spoke to Additional Thursday about his new musical release, Fallen: A Gospel Album for Sinners, and the sobriety journey that led to some of the material on it.
“I was addicted to cocaine for a while,” said the Houston-born actor. “I went to rehab for that and got out of that.
“They say you need a higher power to overcome that.”
The staunch Hollywood star, famous for movies like Traffic, Everybody’s All-American, Any Given Sunday and American Underdog, said it took him “a few years to physically recover from all that.”
The latest: Dennis Quaid, 69, says he’s turned the life lessons he learned getting sober into content for his new gospel album
He said he has “always” been religious, but “sometimes the lights have been off” for him spiritually.
“I often ran away from it,” he said. “I’ve been trying to do it my way for so long with other things you want to fill that gap with.”
The record includes songs like Please Don’t Give Up on Me, What a Friend We Have in Jesus and On My Way to Heaven, the latter of which he says explores the years he spent struggling with addiction.
“I had a band at the time and it was the night we performed at the Palace Theater in Hollywood and we got a record deal, but we broke up because I was just a mess,” said Quaid, who played singer Jerry Lee Lewis. in the 1989 movie Great Balls of Fire.
He continued, “I went home and really had this white-light experience and I saw myself continue down this road and be dead or in jail or lose everything I really cared about.
“So I checked myself into rehab and stripped through.”
He said of his wife of three years, Laura Savoie, ‘God is in the relationship between my wife and me and it’s something different that I’ve never had before.
The veteran actor spoke to Extra about his new musical release, Fallen: A Gospel Album for Sinners, and the sobriety journey that led to some of the material on it
He said of his wife of three years, Laura Savoie, ‘God is in the relationship between my wife and me and it’s something different that I’ve never had before. Pictured in March in Austin, Texas
“She and I have such a beautiful relationship and we pray together.”
The actor met Savoie, who has a background in accounting and yoga, in 2019, and the couple exchanged vows in June 2020 in Santa Barbara, California.
The actor was past in three marriages, to Kimberly Buffington between 2004 and 2018, to Meg Ryan from 1991-2001 and to PJ Soles from 1978 to 1983. He is father to son Jack, 31, to Ryan; and twins Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, 15, with Buggington.