The Working Girl star struggled with alcohol and substance abuse for many years before kicking her addictions, but she subsequently became hooked on prescription painkillers following a skiing accident in 2007.
Griffith, who has a 14-year-old daughter, Stella, with husband Antonio Banderas and two grown-up children, Alexander and Dakota, from previous relationships, has revealed her kids were deeply concerned for her well-being before she agreed to check into rehab in 2009.
She tells AARP The Magazine, “I started on pain pills when I hurt my knee skiing and just kept taking them. The kids knew; Dakota and Stella called me on it. Antonio was in London at the time. I went away to rehab for three months; it took 10 days just to detox”.
The actress has credited her partner with supporting her through the dark times, but she admits he could have done more to understand her illness.
She adds, “Antonio was supportive to the extent that he can be, but if you’re not an alcoholic or drug addict, and you find out that your wife is a bad one, it’s hard to deal with… I wish he would go to a meeting with me or to Al-Anon (Alcoholics Anonymous), but it’s very foreign to him. Addiction runs in my family but not in his.
“I don’t mean that against him. I would like him to do more, but it’s a difficult thing to have happen in any family, and in that way he has been totally by my side. He really is the greatest guy.”
