During those tough times, what kept him going were classic hymnals and some of his own original songs. They played a significant role in helping him rebuild his connection with God and conquer his inner demons.
From People:
“I'm grateful to still be here, I'm grateful to be alive really every day,” the actor and musician, 69, tells PEOPLE in this week's cover story. “It's important to really enjoy your ride in life as much as you can, because there's a lot of challenges and stuff to knock it down.”
For Quaid, those challenges included past struggles with addiction. After making a name for himself as one of Hollywood’s most versatile stars in 1979’s Breaking Away, 1983’s The Right Stuff, 1989’s Great Balls of Fire! and more, Quaid checked himself into rehab — or as he refers to it in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, “cocaine school.”
“I remember going home and having kind of a white light experience that I saw myself either dead or in jail or losing everything I had, and I didn't want that,” he recalls.
“I was in a band,” he adds, “and we got a record gig… They broke up the night they got it, and they broke up because of me, because I was not reliable.”
What saved the Houston, Texas native was returning to his Christian roots. Addiction forces people “to fill a hole inside us,” Quaid explains. “When you're done with the addiction, you need something to fill that hole, something that really works, right?”
In 1990, he wrote the faith-based song “On My Way to Heaven” for his mother Juanita — “to let her know I was okay, because I wasn't okay before then,” he remembers. And he began rereading the Bible, as well as the Bhagavad Gita, the Quran and other religious texts.
“That's when I started developing a personal relationship,” he says. “Before that, I didn't have one, even though I grew up as a Christian.”
It's amazing how faith can be a guiding light even during the darkest moments.
What a blessing that Quaid was able to follow God's path and reconnect with his faith during such a difficult time.
