Selma Blair revealed that she would use alcohol when she was younger to help her cope with MS symptoms.<\/p>\n
The \u201cCruel Intentions\u201d star opened up in an episode of \u201cThe Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg Show<\/a>,\u201d published Tuesday. She said that while she doesn\u2019t drink now, she \u201cused it for so long in times of distress.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI was even a very young age using it for the headaches, using it to calm down, using it very young,\u201d Blair said. \u201cAnd then I realized it was the one thing that took away my nerve pain.\u201d<\/p>\n The podcast episode was filmed before the actor was arrested<\/a> on Oct. 11 at John F. Kennedy International Airport after an alleged altercation with staff during a flight from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Blair went public <\/a>in 2018 about having multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic neurological disorder and autoimmune disease. The actor said on the podcast that she never drank alcohol in public with friends, but rather used the substance to aid her sleep.<\/p>\n \u201c[Alcohol] would make you sleep \u2018cause you pass out and then you wake up three hours later wishing your life was over \u2018cause the sugar spike or whatever,\u201d Blair said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re depressed, that is never going to be a good solution. And I was always just feeling tired and depressed and that was horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n Sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea and insomnia, are common for people with MS, affecting more than half of those living with the autoimmune disease, according to the national Multiple Sclerosis Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t live like a sober sober lifestyle, but drinking, no, I cannot do,\u201d Blair said. \u201cI\u2019m still a human being but I recognize that alcohol is not good medicine for me.\u201d <\/p>\n In the podcast, Blair also talked about the complexities of finding proper MS care, including how she located a female medical specialist who diagnosed her with pseudobulbar affect<\/a>, a neurological condition that causes sudden, uncontrollable episodes of laughing or crying that do not match how the person might feel on the inside.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t talk about medicine so much because one thing that ultimately put me into this relapse-free state, other people could have horrible side effects,\u201d said Blair. \u201cI tried four drugs that worked amazing for other people and it just made me worse and worse.\u201d<\/p>\n In the podcast, Blair also said she no longer has active MS, meaning that the immune system is not actively attacking the brain and spinal cord. However, individuals with MS can still experience \u201ca little traffic jam\u201d in their brain where there is a lesion.<\/p>\n The \u201cHellboy\u201d star, 54, made headlines<\/a> on Oct. 11 when she was taken into custody at JFK Airport and transported to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. The \u201cLegally Blonde\u201d star was accused of kicking a Port Authority Police Department officer as she was being transported to the hospital, as well as kicking a nurse.<\/p>\n On Oct. 12, Blair was charged with two counts of second-degree assault for her alleged actions involving the police officer and nurse. Blair pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n Her attorney reportedly<\/a> told the judge that \u201cthis was not an intentional assault\u201d and that the actor had \u201cmissed several doses of … a powerful medication that controls severe neurological symptoms,\u201d per the New York Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n Los Angeles Times staff writer Tracy Brown contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Selma Blair revealed that she would use alcohol when she was younger to help her cope with MS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[53638,11313,67350,84,321,280231,93,61,60,5399,100933,280230,31343,30078,40672,2096,5596,272157,9315],"class_list":["post-661468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-actor","tag-alcohol","tag-autoimmune-disease","tag-brain","tag-celebrities","tag-distress","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-ms","tag-ms-symptom","tag-multiple-sclerosis","tag-nurse","tag-oct","tag-people","tag-podcast","tag-selma-blair","tag-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}