Dennis Quaid opens up about cocaine addiction, marriage to Meg Ryan

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Dennis Quaid opens up about cocaine addiction

Actor Dennis Quaid opens up about cocaine addiction and his failed marriage to Meg Ryan.

Actor Dennis Quaid opened up about his cocaine addiction and how it got to the point where he was sleeping only one hour a night in an interview that aired Monday.

Quaid, 64, said he started to use cocaine when he first arrived in Hollywood. He would vow to stop doing the drug, but by the early evening he would be back at it, he said, in a clip from "Meghan Kelly Today."

“I was basically doing cocaine pretty much on a daily basis during the '80s,” Quaid said. “I 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 about 4 o'clock in the afternoon I would be, ‘Oh, that's not so bad.’ I had a white light experience where I saw myself either dead or losing everything that meant anything to me,” he said.

Quaid said by the time he was starring in the 1987 hit “The Big Easy,” he was starting to hit rock bottom and getting about one hour of sleep a night.

“I had a reputation for being a ‘bad boy,’ which seemed like a good thing, but basically I just had my head stuck up my a--,” the actor said.

"I was basically doing cocaine pretty much on a daily basis during the '80s."

— Dennis Quaid

Quaid also touched on his marriage to actress Meg Ryan. He said Ryan’s fame “weighed” on him during their time together, adding it affected his career.

“And I have to admit it, I actually did feel like I disappeared,” Quaid said.

The couple divorced in 2001 and have one son together.