DENNIS HOPPER - HOPPER: 'DRUGS ALMOST KILLED ME'

Screen legend DENNIS HOPPER abused drugs and alcohol so severely he almost destroyed his body. The 71-year-old actor and director has a cinematic career spanning more than five decades, much of which has been drink and drug fuelled. But the Blue Velvet star insists she is now a reformed man and has been sober for 24 years - and confesses it's a miracle he survived. Describing one particular tequila and cocaine binge in Mexico, Hopper says, "I was making a movie, but I never made it to the set. They found me running around the jungle naked. Before that, at Mexico City airport, I thought I was in the middle of a movie and walked out on the wing. I was out of my mind. It was around then I decided it was time to get into rehab. My liver, my body, my brain were all shot." In the last five years of his addiction he was drinking half a gallon of rum and 30 beers a day: "It got so bad I used to take three grams of coke so I could sober up enough to drink more."