Prescription Thugs Page #11

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It's serious.

Get out of here!

Thank you!

I first learned about Chris's

addiction and stuff like that

from his friend Leland,

who called me a couple of times.

It was kind of strange

'cause I'd get a phone call,

and he be, like,

"Hey, man, you know,

your brother's

having some issues,

and I think maybe

it's developing

into a problem, you know?"

And then we'd communicate again

a few months later,

and I'd be like,

"How's Chris doing?"

'cause he'd always give me

a straight up answer,

and he's like,

you know, he seemed

like he's refocused.

It seems like things are good,

things are moving forward

with his movie

and with his career and stuff

and looks like it's good.

And then I get another call

a few months later again, like,

"Hey, it looks like things

aren't going so good"

and stuff like that,

and then finally it

kind of climaxed to a point,

where his girlfriend,

she called me one day,

and it was kinda scary.

I mean, first of all,

it was a phone number that...

I don't really ever pick up

my phone.

I, like, never answer

my phone, but I just had a sense

that, like, there was just

something... Something was off,

you know, something was...

I just had a sense

that something may be wrong,

and so I answered it,

and it was his girlfriend

and she couldn't talk.

I didn't even understand

who it was. I was just, like,

you know, who the hell?

And she's like, "It's Lauren,"

and I'm like, "Lauren...

Oh, okay. Chris's girlfriend,"

and then she was very, you know,

very, very upset, hysterical,

and then, so I was just trying

to calm her down and get a sense

of what the hell was going on,

and she said that she was

outside his apartment,

and she was scared to go in

because she was scared

what she would find, you know?

She didn't know

how messed up he would be.

She didn't know if he'd be dead,

laying on the floor dead.

Luckily,

she didn't find me dead,

but I wasn't too far from it.

The truth was,

even making this film,

I'd been lying to everyone.

My addiction to pills

hadn't actually ended

after my hip surgery.

I traded pills for alcohol,

which led me right back

to the pills.

My family rallied the troops,

and the next thing I knew,

I was back with Richard Taite

at Cliffside Malibu,

but this time as a patient.

After 60 days of rehab,

I finally got to come home.

I'm so happy you're home.

I prayed so much for this.

I'm just so happy

you're doing better.

I'm sorry.

No, it's okay.

I needed to go to rehab,

so, like, whatever I did

whether it was subconsciously...

It definitely wasn't

consciously.

It was subconsciously.

Whatever I did subconsciously

was like some sort of

weird cry for help

because I didn't

know how to say it.

I knew I had a problem

still, and I couldn't...

Like, I was like, whoa,

we're... Like, also like, yeah.

I went out, and I raised

the money for this movie,

and I got funded on this movie,

and they're like, okay, here,

go ahead, go make your movie.

What am I gonna do, turn around

and, like, "Well, here's

the problem with the movie.

I'm actually a drug addict

and an alcoholic, and I can't

admit it to you?"

So, like, let's not

make the movie.

I was sort of like wheels in

motion, and I'm like, you know,

when they said, "Okay, you won,

you got the money."

I'm like, sh*t.

Now I got the money.

Now I actually have to do it.

With you, you know.

I know, you know...

If I get phone calls a lot,

and you're excited,

I know that you're

doing good, but it's

when you don't want

to talk when I know

you're not doing good,

and I don't want

to make that phone call.

You kind of play

these things out,

and you're just gonna be,

like, "Oh, he's just gonna

tell me to f*** off,"

and I don't know why.

But I wouldn't do that.

I respect you probably

more than anybody.

You'd be the only person

I'd listen to.

Yeah.

The only one.

Uh, yeah. It's tough,

like I said.

I'm certainly welled up

right now over it.

There's so much

that I've lied about.

There's so much that I feel

sorry, like feel bad for.

Even during the

course of this movie,

I'm a liar, you know.

In the middle of the movie,

I go to the State Capitol,

and I talk to the Senator,

and I say to him, you know,

"You can buy these drugs

on Craigslist,"

and he said, "Well, how do

you know?" and I said,

"Well, I used to do it

years ago." I was doing it

while I was making the movie.

I was on the phone

calling people

on Craigslist buying Xanax.

If you're an addict, you

don't have a choice. Okay?

You don't have control over it.

It's got control over you.

What this is, it's

a behavioral disorder.

You habituate,

you do over

and over and over

again certain actions,

and you create a neural

pathway in your brain, okay?

And that's the action that

you're more likely to repeat.

Any time you're out

of balance with anything,

at its most simplest level,

it's a behavior

that you want to change,

and you have to replace

it with a behavior

that is more mindful

and balanced.

So, you change that behavior

that's causing you wreckage,

or grief in some way,

and you replace it

with the behavior

that serves you.

The problem with people

is that they don't want

to take responsibility.

They want to blame someone else.

The pharmaceutical industry

isn't doing this to us

if we don't allow it to be done.

There's something called

consumer demand.

If there was no consumer

demand, they would stop

pushing the things

down our throats.

So, people have to be proactive,

and they have to start

self-educating

and be their own health

advocate.

If you don't speak up for you,

no one is going

to speak up for you.

This is Kat Taylor.

She's a child psychologist

specializing in families

dealing with addiction.

Why do you think addiction

is such a big problem

in America?

Our culture trains us

to avoid bad things,

and I work with a lot

of children, and I ask them

to identify a time

they felt sad, and I have

a lot of children that

will not identify a time

they feel sad because

we're not supposed to be sad.

We get these messages

in our media and in our culture

that everything's

supposed to be great.

Anybody could just go

to Facebook, right?

Everything looks wonderful

on Facebook, right?

We're all launching

our own little campaigns

about how great our lives are,

and we want to have

the white picket fence.

We want to have

that American dream,

and it's just going to be...

Everything's gonna be great,

so this abject denial

of anything negative

leads us to feel

very uncomfortable.

A lot of times those

feelings are normal.

Negative feelings are normal.

Sad feelings are normal.

It's part of life.

We have to accept it.

As I was going through

the footage of this film,

I came across an interview

my father did with my brother

right before he died

that seems to get

to the heart of the matter.

So, what's your plan?

What do you think

you're gonna do?

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