Robert Downey Jr comes clean about past drug use to David Letterman, recalls being revived from ‘near coma’ to shoot scene

Actor Robert Downey Jr opened up about his past struggles with drugs in an appearance on David Letterman’s talk show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. On the show, he recalled how he was never ‘blotto’ on set, but on certain occasions had to be revived from a ‘near-coma’ to shoot scenes. “Back then, when I was a kid, doing that, you could say that it was ‘fun’, but it was pretty stressful too,” he said. “And then when I, you know, was locked up in a penitentiary, she sent me a letter saying, ‘Let me tell you about what I meant by it’s going great,’” he said, adding that he didn’t know what ‘the tipping point’ of him slipping into addiction was, but that it was ‘just the culture that I was raised in.’ He continued, “As the AMA will say that alcoholism or addiction is essentially a brain disease, but it’s a brain disease that people don’t want to take the cure for when it’s offered, so it’s a very insidious thing.” The actor credited his wife for getting him through that phase of his life, and recalled that she’d been assigned to chaperone him at the peak of his troubles.