When Oscar-winning former child star Tatum O'Neal was arrested in New York Sunday after a narcotic team spotted her buying crack and cocaine, she said she was "doing research" for an upcoming role as a junkie.
But now the actress, who wrote a 2004 memoir "A Paper Life" about her recovery from heroin addiction, says her dog's death "set her off."
"There's no excuse for what I did. (But) I lost my Scottish terrier, Lena. That seemed to set me off," O'Neal told The New York Post. "She got old. She got cancer. She was the fabric of our family. We had to let her go to heaven. My daughter and I had to put her down. It was too horrible for words.
"I couldn't get out of it. I was going to my psychiatrist. I was doing everything I could do. I have the disease of alcoholism. It's lifelong. I treat it every day by going to my 12-step program."
O'Neal credits the police who arrested her for dissuading her to go back down the path of alcoholism and addiction.
She told The Post: "I'm still sober! Just when I was about to change that and wreck my life, the cops came and saved me! I was saved by the bell, by the guys in the Seventh Precinct."
The actress was arrested and charged with one misdemeanor charge of criminal possession of a controlled substance. She was released on her own recognizance and is due to return to court July 28.
