Kirstie Alley has a fun way to remind herself about the value of sobriety: flowers. The Cheers alum revealed her little ritual on Twitter this week, and fans were charmed by the idea. Alley is now 40 years sober.
“For u who don’t know much about me, I used to be a coke head,” Alley tweeted bluntly on Thursday.
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The tweet included two photos of flowers — a huge bouquet arranged in a white vase nearly as big around as a fish bowl. It was patterned with an intricate yellow design and resting on an elegant dining table. Alley soon explained what the occasion was.
For u who don’t know much about me, I used to be a coke head. I quit drugs in 1979 & vowed to spend the same $ weekly on flowers that I’d spent on drugs. I buy & arrange my own flowers as a gift to MYSELF. I buy them in the grocery store ..:)!🥰🌷🌹🌺🌸 pic.twitter.com/WfbcHXjkVC
— Kirstie Alley (@kirstiealley) November 22, 2019
“I quit drugs in 1979 & vowed to spend the same $ weekly on flowers that I’d spent on drugs,” she wrote. “I buy & arrange my own flowers as a gift to MYSELF. I buy them in the grocery store.”
Alley punctuated her tweet with a smiling emoticon, then a few floral, heart-filled emojis. The post was a hit, garnering nearly 19,000 likes and almost 1,000 retweets. It got a lot of responses as well, as fans thought this was a creative way to reward herself.
“Good for you, I did not know that about you,” one fan wrote. “So glad that you were able to pull through, that is so powerful!”
“Love this. Feeding your soul not your addiction,” added another.
“God bless you, Kirstie and congratulations on 40 years of sobriety! Here’s to 40 more,” a third person tweeted.
Alley got off of cocaine through her affiliation with the Church of Scientology. According to a report by NBC News, she enrolled in a program called Narconon in 1979 — a Scientology-affiliated drug treatment program. She remains in the church to this day, and even owns a home right near its spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, Florida.
Alley is still a member of the church as far as fans know. In 2013, she spoke out against Leah Remini, who had just disentangled herself from Scientology at the time. She tweeted that she “though” Remini “was my friend,” but finding out otherwise, added “f— ’em” with a smiley face.
Remini went on to make a show for A&E titled Scientology and The Aftermath, documenting the cases of people who had left the church and collecting reports of abuse and corruption within the organization. The show came to an end this year, and outspoken Scientologists like Alley continue to say that it and other documentaries are wrong about their organization.
