“Buffy” actress Eliza Dushku shared her sobriety milestone on Instagram.
Eliza Dushku, best known for her roles in the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the film Bring It On, is celebrating 10 years sober on Instagram.
Posting an image of a large Roman numeral X, the 37-year-old actress bubbled with positivity and gratefulness in the caption. “#grateful #sober #X yrs today. holy sh*t. #aa #twelvesteps #willingness a #sponsor #fellowship #service & asking for help #odaat saved my life,” Dushku wrote on the post. “If you’re struggling w #alcohol &/or #drug #addiction, I promise, you don’t have to live that way anymore.”
She topped off the post with a little encouragement and advice for any of her fans who might be facing the same problems. “Reach out, your life is waiting for you: www.aa.org & www.na.org,” she wrote. Possibly making a reference to her Buffy character’s name, she added “Have #FAITH.”
Dushku hasn’t always been so public about her recovery. For years, she kept her struggles with substance abuse under wraps, only speaking directly about it for the first time in March of last year at the Youth Summit on Opioid Awareness in New Hampshire.
“Something a lot of people don’t know about me is that I am an alcoholic and I was a drug addict for a lot of years,” Dushku told a crowd of 8,000 middle and high school students. “You hear people say ‘I am that’ because I am that, and I’m always going to be that, but the difference between me and an alcoholic or drug addict that still drinks and does drugs is that I am sober.”
Dushku said that she began using drugs when she was just 14 years old.
“I loved the first time I took a drug because I loved how it made me feel. I loved the way it made me not feel, and I didn’t have to feel,” she recounted to the audience. “It was fun and I loved it, until it wasn’t.”
Her substance abuse problems got worse, spiraling down until one day her brother stopped allowing Dushku to visit her niece while under the influence.
“I remember my brother telling me he didn’t want me to be around my niece because he didn’t trust me,” Dushku said. “I’m a really good auntie today. But you know what? He was right. I’m a good person, but when I did drugs and I drank, I didn’t make good decisions. … All it takes is one bad decision. You don’t have to live like that.”
These days, Dushku is doing better, celebrating 10 years sober as well as getting married in August.
