Stars Get Real About the Connection Between Mental Health and Addiction

The connection between mental health and substance misuse is frequently misunderstood and underreported.

In March 2025, Us Weekly presented ‘The Missing Issue’ — which was dedicated to an exploration of co-occurring disorders. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), approximately 48.5 million Americans battle substance misuse — and approximately 50 percent of those people are misusing substances to cope with mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, and PTSD. Us collaborated on ‘The Missing Issue’ with the harris project, a nonprofit organization that offers support for those dealing with mental health and addiction-related issues.

Us subsequently spoke with The Valley cast member Jesse Lally, How I Met Your Father alum Francia Raisa and more stars about the intersection between mental health and substance misuse at the Cure Addiction Now‘s 2nd Annual Fundraising Evening in Beverly Hills in November 2025.

Through these discussions, several celebrities reflected on their own experiences with co-occurring disorders — and what they’ve learned about them from their loved ones, friends and fans.

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Keep scrolling for their stories about the complex relationship between mental health and addiction.

Francia Raisa

Former Grown-ish star Francia Raisa advocated for open and frank discussions about mental health and addiction so others do not feel alone.

“All of us have mental health issues,” she told Us.

Raisa disclosed that she had recently been diagnosed with both “chronic PTSD and ADHD.” (According to the Mayo Clinic, PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, is a “mental health condition that’s caused by an extremely stressful or terrifying event,” while adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, can be characterized by “difficulty paying attention, hyperactivity and impulsive behavior.”)

“I am on medication, and I can see how certain medications that you take can lead to certain addictions. Mine aren’t that, but I understand how some things make you feel like you’re numbing wonderful and not dealing,” she clarified.

The actress also mentioned that her passion for promoting mental health and addiction awareness comes from a deeply personal place.

“As someone that grew up with a father who struggled with it, sometimes it’s better to go through the pain, and then on the other side, it’s a lot better,” she advised. “But I think with mental health issues, you just want to numb the pain.”

Siedah Garrett

Singer-songwriter Siedah Garrett shared her belief that mental health and substance misuse can be “married” because of the way they “feed off each other.”

“I think when one exists, the other one definitely exists,” she said. “And when that happens in people, and they don’t understand what’s going on with them, they don’t understand what’s happening, it’s really frightening and kind of scary.”

The Grammy Award-winning musician was a close collaborator with the late Michael Jackson, who died in 2019 of cardiac arrest linked to acute propofol intoxication. (Propofol is a powerful anesthetic that Jackson was misusing as a sleep aid.)

Speaking to Us, Garrett argued that there is still “a stigma about mental health and drug addiction” despite a greater awareness and empathy for both conditions today.

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“If you have both those things going on, nobody wants to talk to you, nobody wants to help you, nobody wants to deal with your issues,” she said. “But this is something that’s taking our country over. It’s the biggest problem among Generation X. It’s the thing that’s killing them the most.”

Looking ahead, Garrett suggested a significant shift in the way society views mental health and addiction.

“It’s this generation. It’s the generation after,” she said. “I just don’t know how we cannot fix this problem. I don’t think we can exist as humans, without having to find, without having found a cure for this. I think this is a necessity for humanity.”

Eden McCoy

Eden McCoy — who has played Josslyn Jacks on General Hospital since 2015 — explained how personal experience helped her to understand that mental health and addiction are “directly related.”

“I mean, addiction is a disease. It’s a physical disease,” she told Us. “I have had people very close to me suffer from addiction, family members, non-family members that feel like family. While I can understand the frustration that the disease brings to all parties, the victim being one party, I think that it’s an extreme exercise in human empathy, and it’s all about perspective.”

McCoy later reflected on the emotional toll of watching loved ones trying to recover from addiction.

“For me, to see people that I love very dearly suffer from addiction has been catastrophic in just my development as a human being,” she said. “It’s a true practice in patience and empathy of another person. And I think that [addiction and mental health] go hand-in-hand completely. And I think it’s important for everybody to know that it is a full on disease as much as it’s stigmatized for whatever reason, I think it’s just so important to exercise your patience and your empathy for another human being.”

Lisa Vidal

Lisa Vidal announced in May 2021 that she’d lost “my beautiful baby boy, my angel, my sweet son” Scott Jarred Cohen at age 28. (It was later reported that he’d died by suicide.)

“How I loved you son… so very deeply… how I will always love you… and how I so very much treasured being your mom, the greatest gift of all, the greatest treasure, the greatest honor, the greatest present that God could give us… You will always and forever be in my heart,” she wrote via Instagram at the time.

During an interview with Us, the Being Mary Jane and Grey’s Anatomy alum singled out the role “trauma” can play in both mental health and addiction.

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“I think addiction and mental health are completely hand-in-hand, they go together,” she said. “Because, well, let’s just first say that a drug changes a person’s mental and brain chemical balance. That’s No. 1. No. 2, usually addiction is either you’re either predisposed genetically or there’s a genetic component, but also there’s trauma usually attached to addiction, which is absolutely a mental health issue that’s ignored in this country.”

Vidal has worked closely with Cure Addiction Now in recent years to offer support for those struggling.

“As far as I’m concerned, we [as a society] need to do better, and so Cure Addiction Now is really looking at all those components working together and needing to be addressed, each separately and together, because they go hand in hand,” she added.

Aly Michalka

The former Disney Channel star — and one-half of musical duo Aly & AJ with her sister AJ Michalka — shared with Us that many of her fans have credited her music with helping them through “tough times.”

“I think [mental health and substance misuse] completely go hand in hand,” she told Us in November 2025. “And I know this because we were talking about just fans kind of sharing their stories with us, and even just maybe how our music has helped them get through hard, tough times. And addiction is definitely a part of that.”

Aly Michalka stressed that both Michalka sisters “really believe in the cause” of mental health awareness. AJ and Aly have previously discussed the benefits of responsibly taking antidepressants because depression runs in their family. (Aly has said that she was prescribed medication for over a decade to treat depression, while sister AJ was treated for “pretty severe OCD,” anxiety and depression.)

Taylor Dayne

Taylor Dayne wrote in her memoir Tell It to My Heart: How I Lost My S#T, Conquered My Fear, and Found My Voice that she experienced a different type of addiction — an “addiction to fear.” The “Tell It to My Heart” recalled that she built an “emotional prison” around herself at the height of her fame to cope with anxiety.

When she spoke with Us at Cure Addiction Now’s 2nd Annual Fundraising Evening, Dayne related her experiences to those who face co-occurring disorders.

“Addiction is a feeling you get that is a safer place to be at than the feelings you have in your body that are traumatic,” she said. “And I’ve suffered from PTSD to cancer to numerous things, and when used correctly, certain substances that you know are being discovered and can really, really help a lot. And when I think of addiction, now I don’t just think of drugs and alcohol.”

Jesse Lally

The Valley star Jesse Lally promoted greater awareness of men’s mental health issues, as there continues to be a stigma around men seeking treatment.

“We’re seeing this shift toward really checking in on men and men’s mental health,” he said. “And I’ve had a lot of friends who have struggled with mental health [where] it just leads into alcohol and drug addiction, and they’re not getting to the root cause of their mental health issues, so they turn to alcohol and drugs. And I’ve lost friends. I’ve been in LA, you know, 25 years, and I’ve seen friends come and go because of it.”

The Bravo personality emphasized the way he’s personally witnessed some men struggle to be vulnerable around their loved ones.

“I think there’s a real spotlight on men right now and what they struggle with as well as women,” he said. “I think the world in general now sees a more sensitive side of the man. And I think men are more open to now getting together with other men and talking about what they’re struggling with. And I’ve been part of those men’s groups in the past where you understand the struggle of what another man is going through. And some people, they just don’t want to make it public. Maybe they don’t want to talk to their partner, but they’re happy to talk to a friend and I think it’s really important.”

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Lally has learned more about the ties between mental health and addiction from his girlfriend, Lacy Nicole, who is a mental health advocate.

“I absolutely believe that addiction is a mental health illness and that the stigma that used to come along with addiction needs to be continuously eradicated, because we love those who are affected by something they can’t control regardless,” Nicole told Us. “So to be here on a night celebrating the advancements that have been made for curing addiction is a big deal.”

While it’s crucial to identify the dangers of co-occurring disorders, Nicole said it was equally important to celebrate the strides that society has made.

“We have to celebrate the wins along the way, but also to continue emphasizing and sharing our stories so that people know that it doesn’t take one person or another person from one group or the other for addiction to effect, it’s an equal opportunity, tragic and painful experience,” she said. “So it’s really important that everybody understands the history behind it or the stories behind it, so that we know there’s real human beings that are being affected.”

Bella Podaras

Euphoria season 3 star Bella Podaras told Us that she thinks “a lot” about the intersection between mental health and addiction.

“It’s important to protect yourself. And like there’s so much exposure now, and there’s so many things you can do that stimulate your mind all the time,” she said. “I think it’s really easy to slip into these pitfalls of scrolling all day long. I do it, and I need to stop, everyone does it.”

Podaras referenced how helpful it had been to prioritize self-care in her own life.

“I think it’s just real discipline of, like, all right, let’s put the phone down,” she said. “I will try to take a bath and read.”

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.