By Cara Murez HealthDay Reporter
(HealthDay)
MONDAY, Jan. 23, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Actor Michael J. Fox details his experiences with Parkinson’s disease, including turning to alcohol and pills in an try and cope, in a recent documentary.
Fox, 61, has had the degenerative brain disorder since 1991, but didn’t disclose it publicly until 1998.
The star — best known for the “Back to the Future” movies — said he was an alcoholic within the early days and in addition took dopamine pills like candy while attempting to hide symptoms of his condition, equivalent to tremors.
“Therapeutic value, comfort — none of those were the explanation I took these pills. There was just one reason: to cover,” Fox says within the documentary “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie.”
“I became a virtuoso of manipulating drug intake in order that I’d peak at exactly the correct time and place,” admits the actor, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at 29.
Fox says he got sober 30 years ago with the assistance of his wife, actress Tracy Pollan, and his children, USA Today reported.
“I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know what was coming. So what if I could just have 4 glasses of wine and perhaps a shot?” Fox says. “I used to be definitely an alcoholic.”
“As little as alcohol had brought me, abstinence would bring me lower. I could now not escape myself,” Fox recalls, in accordance with the news report.
The documentary is by Oscar-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, best known for “An Inconvenient Truth.” It’s showing on the Sundance Film Festival through Jan. 29 and might be on Apple TV+ later this yr.
Fox says within the film that he was crammed with dread about his prognosis after learning he had the degenerative brain disorder. That diagnosis is shared by an estimated 1 million Americans.
“To me, the worst thing is restraint,” Fox says. “The worst thing is to be confined and to not have the option to have a way out.” Within the early days, “there are occasions after I went, ‘There is not any way out of this.'”
Along with alcohol and pills, Fox initially turned to work and travel to try to manage.
“You’ll be able to’t pretend at home that you just haven’t got Parkinson’s since you’re just there with it. If I’m out on this planet, I’m coping with other people they usually do not know I even have it,” he reveals.
The movie covers Fox’s symptoms, equivalent to frequent falls while walking and intense pain.
“People around me are going, ‘Watch out, watch out,'” Fox says. “And I’m like: ‘This has nothing to do with being careful. This happens.'”
Eventually, Fox’s work in Parkinson’s research offered a recent direction. He began the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000, finding a recent sense of purpose.
“Some people would view the news of my disease as an ending,” Fox says. “But I used to be beginning to sense it was really a starting.”
SOURCE: USA Today, Jan. 23, 2023
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