Natasha Lyonne Opens Up About Relapse After Nearly a Decade of Sobriety
Actress Natasha Lyonne publicly disclosed on Friday that she has relapsed after nearly 10 years of sobriety, using social media to share her experience with characteristic honesty and a message of support for others facing similar struggles.
“Took my relapse public. More to come,” the Russian Doll actress wrote on X, followed by a more extensive reflection hours later. “Recovery is a lifelong process. Anyone out there struggling, remember you’re not alone,” she shared with her followers.
“Grateful for love & smart feet. Stay honest, folks. Sick as our secrets,” Lyonne continued. She also emphasized hope and perseverance, encouraging others to “Don’t quit before the miracle. Wallpaper your mind with love.”
The 46-year-old star, known for her roles in Orange Is the New Black, Russian Doll, and Poker Face, has long been candid about her struggles with substance abuse. Multiple incidents that occurred during Lyonne’s battle with addiction received widespread media attention in the early 2000s, including a 2001 drunk driving arrest and methadone treatment for heroin addiction that was revealed after a 2005 hospitalization.
In 2005, Lyonne was hospitalized after suffering a collapsed lung, a heart infection, and hepatitis C, conditions caused by her longtime drug abuse. The near-death experience, along with a string of other legal troubles, is what prompted her to get sober.
Lyonne’s battle with addiction received widespread media attention earlier in her career before she went to rehab in 2006. Her experiences with drug addiction were later used to inspire her character Nicky on the hit Netflix series Orange is the New Black.
In a 2012 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Natasha acknowledged how close she had come to a fatal outcome, “I was definitely as good as dead, you know? A lot of people don’t come back.”
Despite the seriousness of her past struggles, Lyonne has consistently worked to transform her experience into something meaningful. “In many ways, I’m very grateful I had such a public addiction story,” she said in 2019, adding that “what is more interesting about it is that I never feel like anybody in that position is a stranger to me.”
Lyonne also addressed systemic issues surrounding addiction treatment and stigma, posting: “We need better systems and to end shame — bill the sacklers & stilettos or something but don’t @ me for getting honest.”
“No matter how far down the scales we have gone, we will see how our experience may help another,” Lyonne wrote.
In a December interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Lyonne revealed that her priority project for 2026 is Bambo, her second directorial feature.
The 1980s-set boxing film follows a Brooklyn-born boxing promoter father who “tries and fails to make it big” and takes his young daughter along for what Lyonne described as “the hurly burly ride of tax evasion, cocaine, race cars, lost dreams and heartbreak.”
Principal photography is set to begin in summer 2026. In one of her social media posts about her relapse, Lyonne referenced the project, writing that she was doing it “for baby Bambo.”
📸Carrie-nelson
