'I saw myself dead or in jail.' Dennis Quaid was one of the world's biggest stars when he checked into rehab.

In 1990, Dennis Quaid felt rock bottom fast approaching.

"I remember going home and having kind of a white light experience that I saw myself either dead or in jail or losing everything I had, and I didn't want that," he told People magazine in a July 2023 cover story.

So, after making a name for himself with films like 1983's The Right Stuff and 1989's Great Balls of Fire!, Quaid checked himself into rehab - or 'cocaine school', as he called it.

When he got out, he turned to faith to "fill that hole" that he said is left when an addict is "done with addiction".

"We're all looking for the joy of life, and drugs give that to you and alcohol and whatever it is for anybody give that to you really quick. Then they're fun and then they're fun with problems, and then they're just problems after a while," he explained.

Sobriety helped him find "the joy of being alive" again.

"I'm grateful to still be here, I'm grateful to be alive really every day," Quaid said. "It's important to really enjoy your ride in life as much as you can, because there’s a lot of challenges and stuff to knock it down."

In 2018, Quaid told Today he was a daily cocaine user in the 1980s when his star was on the rise. 

"I had spent many, many a night screaming at God to please take this away from me, 'I'll never do it again because I've only got an hour before I have to be at work.'"

Then, after making it through the workday, he would change his tune. 

"Then about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I would go, 'That's not so bad,'" he recalled, and the cycle would repeat.

Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan in 2000. Image: Getty.

After his 'white light' moment, he sat down with then-fiancée Meg Ryan to explain the severity of his situation.

"That was the end of the love affair for me with cocaine," he said. "I didn't play music for a while because it was so connected to music. I meditated for two years straight. I read the Bible. I read the Dhammapada. I read the Bhagavad Gita. I read the Quran. I just started really delving into the mystery because that's what addiction is really about - it's about trying to fill up a hole inside of yourself."

After getting out of rehab, he wrote a song called 'On My Way to Heaven' for his mother Juanita "to let her know I was okay, because I wasn't okay before then," he told People.

"That's when I started developing a personal relationship [with religion]. Before that, I didn't have one, even though I grew up as a Christian."

After rehab, he continued a strong career with films like Something to Talk About alongside Julia Roberts and, of course, the iconic The Parent Trap, and married Ryan, who he shares actor son Jack Quaid with.

In 2007, he welcomed twins with third wife Kimberly Buffington.

In 2020, he married his fourth wife, 30-year-old Laura Savoie.

Now, aged 69, he is having one of the busiest years of his career so far.

Quaid has just released an album called Fallen: A Gospel Record For Sinners, and has five films out this year. Most notably, he will play former US President Ronald Reagan in upcoming biopic Reagan.

He also stars in new Max miniseries Full Circle with Claire Danes and Timothy Olyphant and will have a lead role in Lawmen: Bass Reeves, the upcoming fourth instalment in Taylor Sheridan's mammoth Yellowstone franchise. 

Feature image: Getty.

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