The Comeback Kid: Corey Haim's 20-Year Struggle With Addiction

Corey Haim, 38, was found dead today of an apparent drug overdose. A self-described “chronic relapser,” Haim made repeated attempts, over the past two decades, to reestablish his once promising career by claiming he was sober, when he clearly wasn’t.

After a meteoric rise to fame as a teen idol in the late ’80s—starring in films like Lucas, The Lost Boys, and License to Drive—Haim went down a path of drug addiction that’s sadly common among child stars. The tabloids and studios noticed his downward spiral, and the job offers dwindled. In 1989 he financed the self-promotional video/documentary Corey Haim: Me, Myself, and I in an attempt to convince his fans and industry colleagues that he had his act together, but his behavior on camera—which has a sort of Dirk Diggler quality to it—only fueled more rumors of drug use.

In the ’90s, Haim was relegated to straight-to-video releases, and some TV work here and there. In 2000 he spent time in rehab, but a year later, in an E! True Hollywood Story about his life, his speech was so slurred, he was barely coherent.

Haim took a five-year break from Hollywood and moved back to Canada. In 2007, he and best friend (and frequent costar) Corey Feldman starred in the reality show The Two Coreys. The first season of the show was kind of fake and scripted, nonetheless, ended up in a real-life feud between the Coreys. When they returned for season two, Feldman—who had gotten sober decades earlier—was not willing to hide Haim’s drug use, and wanted to confront it head on. But it was obvious anyway, from Haim’s behavior. The two actors managed to land roles in a straight-to-DVD release of The Lost Boys 2, during which Haim took drugs in his trailer, held the filming schedule up for hours, and then couldn’t remember his lines. In the end, he was cut from the movie, appearing only briefly during the end credits.

After the Lost Boys 2 debacle, Feldman tried to put together an intervention—along with Todd Bridges and Pauly Shore—but Haim was only angered. During the rest of the filming of second season of The Two Coreys, Haim’s drug use only became more and more apparent, yet he refused to go to rehab.

Instead, he took out this ad in Variety in 2008.

Feldman swore that he would not speak to Haim until he sobered up. Last month, TMZ caught the Coreys hanging out together, leading many to believe that perhaps now, Haim had finally cleaned up his act. He had several movies in various states of production, supporting this theory. However, according to TMZ, several bottles of prescription pills were found near his body.