Tatum O’Neal has spoken up about nearly dying as a result of a heroin overdose in 2020.
The 59-year-old American actress was in a coma for six weeks after suffering a stroke.
Tatum had struggled with addiction for decades, but it was the Coronavirus outbreak that brought everything to a head.
In May of that year, the Academy Award winner ‘overdosed on a combination of pain medication, opiates, and morphine.’
Speaking candidly to People, the mother-of-three shared her hopes for sobriety and how her brush with death affected her loved ones.
‘I almost died,’ she stated frankly.
Her eldest child, son Kevin McEnroe, 37, said it was ‘the phone call we’d always been waiting for.’
‘She also had a cardiac arrest and a number of seizures,’ he added.
‘There were times we didn’t think she was going to survive.’
Kevin and his siblings, Sean, 35, and Emily, 32, worried that if their mother survived, she would never walk or speak again.
Kevin explained that his mother had become’very isolated’ as a result of her hospitalisation in 2020.
‘With the addition of morphine and heavier pharmaceuticals, it was getting scary. Covid, chronic pain, all these things led to a place of isolation. In that place, I don’t think, for her, there was much hope,’ he said in a heartbreaking admission.
Tatum was diagnosed with aphasia while in the hospital, an illness that limits a person’s ability to communicate owing to injury in a portion of the brain.
Her right frontal cortex was damaged.
‘At times, it was touch and go,’ Kevin said.
‘I had to call my brother and sister and say she was thought to be blind, deaf and potentially might never speak again.’
When Tatum finally awoke, she was unable to tell her family that she was terrified and had no idea where she was or what was going on.
To make matters worse, her husband and children could only reach her via phone, and any visitors had to stand behind glass screens.
Tatum worked to heal during the following two years, under the supervision of specialists and with frequent therapy.
Tatum, who has spent time in several recovery centres, has been on a true journey, attending 12-step meetings on a daily basis.
She’s had to work hard to regain her strength, improve her memory, and read and write again.
‘I’ve been through a lot,’ she noted.
‘I’ve been trying to get sober my whole life. Every day, I am trying.’
But one thing has been constant: her family’s support.
And it’s because of them that she wants to get better, with Kevin stating she’s ’embraced’ her current rehabilitation effort.
‘I want to be with my beautiful three kids,’ Tatum added, as writer son Kevin said she is ‘learning to be with herself and find some love for herself.;
‘All I ask her every day is just to try.
‘I think we’re both really lucky to have gotten this chance.’
Worried about drugs?
Frank offers confidential advice about drugs and addiction (email frank@talktofrank.com, message 82111 or call 0300 123 6600) or the NHS has information about getting help.
Adfam has local groups for families affected by drugs and alcohol and DrugFam offers phone and email support to people affected by other people’s drug or alcohol misuse.
