Overview

• The disclosure came in a new interview with The Times, marking her first public account of a long private struggle.
• She says her drinking escalated in her sixties after menopause, the deaths of her parents and an empty nest as her son left home.
• After admitting at a family lunch for her 65th birthday that she could not stop drinking, she flew the next day to The Meadows clinic in Arizona for six weeks of rehab.
• She committed to Alcoholics Anonymous during treatment and says she still attends meetings as part of her recovery.
• Framing addiction as a family illness with an inherited component, she says recovery has improved her life and aligns with her advocacy work and upcoming memoir If Only You Knew, due September 25.