14 Interesting Facts About Robin Williams

12. Robin & John Belushi

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Williams had an addiction to cocaine.

He and John were good friends and fellow partiers, which means the two would frequently go out, snort some white powder and go wild.

Unfortunately, John overdosed on cocaine and heroin on March 5th, 1982 and that was a huge wake-up call for Robin. That and the birth of his son Zak prompted him to quit drugs and alcohol.

Williams turned to exercise and cycling to help alleviate his depression shortly after Belushi’s death, and according to his cycling partner and bicycle shop owner Tony Tom – cycling saved his life.

However, Williams started drinking alcohol again in 2003, while working in a small town in Skagway, Alaska. On August 9, 2006, he checked himself in to a substance-abuse rehabilitation center in Newberg, Oregon. He later officially stated that he was an alcoholic and his publicist delivered this announcement:

“After 20 years of sobriety, Robin Williams found himself drinking again and has decided to take proactive measures to deal with this for his own well-being and the well-being of his family.”

While acknowledging his failure to maintain sobriety, Williams never returned to the use of cocaine. In an interview back in 2010 he said: “No. Cocaine – paranoid and impotent, what fun. There was no bit of me thinking, ooh, let’s go back to that. Useless conversations until midnight, waking up at dawn feeling like a vampire on a day pass. No.”