Renowned actor Dennis Quaid has opened up about his crippling battle with cocaine addiction that began during the height of his fame as a movie star in the 1980s. He would take up to two grams of cocaine a day at the peak of his addiction.

In a tell-all interview with The Times, he spoke about how he fell deeper and deeper into his addiction; every time he tried to quit by 4pm the next day, he would be back at it again. He said, "I liked coke. I liked it to go out. I would do coke and I would use alcohol to come down." He finally decided to check himself into rehab after a "white light experience."

He said, "I had one of those white-light experiences where I saw myself being dead and losing everything I had worked for my whole life. So I put myself in rehab." Quaid gave up alcohol for 10 years as he battled to overcome the addiction, revealing he missed cocaine for 'quite a while'. Speaking about alcohol he said, "I started drinking again because alcohol was never my problem. I never liked the feeling of being drunk."

The 64-year-old has been divorced three times most recently divorcing Texas property agent Kimberly Buffington after 14 years together. During the interview, he also discussed his relationships and the kind of impact his divorces had on him. "I think what divorce does is, it takes away your identity,' he said.

"It's like death. Your identity is wrapped up in the relationship and if it's not going to be there...who are you?" His most public split was with Meg Ryan after being Hollywood's golden couple in the 1990s. His divorce with her caught the attention of then-president Bill Clinton. "When it was announced that Meg and I were getting a divorce, he called me from Air Force One," Quaid revealed. "He was over the Atlantic right after Palestinian talks had collapsed. I don't know how he found me, but he did. He just wanted to let me know he was thinking of me." 

Clinton and Quaid became friends after the actor and Ryan were invited to attend a state dinner with the King of Spain. His wife Hillary was going out of town and Clinton asked Quaid to stay the weekend and play some golf. Talking about the time they spent together, he said, "It was just me and Bill. We played golf, we got in the president's limousine and had a couple of Subway sandwiches. At the time I was better at golf, but he would have been a much better golfer if he wasn't president. He was the smartest guy I'd ever met, and very kind to me."