After her drug bust this past weekend actress Tatum O’Neal called up the New York Post to give a media-quote-friendly, upbeat, positive interview. A little too much so, in my opinion. I tend to be ridiculously optimistic, but by the end of reading O’Neal’s interview – in which she repeats every addiction cliché in the book – I was left feeling like she was reading from a script. She was just way too bubbly, everything considered. She even went so far as to say New York was “cool” for not giving her any special treatment, implying that she would have gotten it somewhere else. I doubt she thought it was cool while her ass was in jail.

Tatum also claims that she’s still sober, because she was buying drugs for the first time. So Tatum says she’s thankful she was arrested and didn’t actually relapse.

“I’m still sober!” she announced to me, two hours after being sprung from a night in jail, rumpled but far more rested and relaxed than I might look after a warm shower and heavy doses of caffeine. “Just when I was about to change that and wreck my life, the cops came and saved me!” Tatum crowed. “I was saved by the bell, by the guys in the Seventh Precinct.”

[From the New York Post]

Tatum once again blames her almost-relapse on the death of her 16-year-old Scottish terrier. She claims she was doing everything she was supposed to – visiting her psychiatrist, going to AA meetings daily – but that she just couldn’t handle the extreme grief she felt. She said she was wandering around aimlessly this weekend, without even intending to buy drugs, and then she did.

“One day, I’m walking aimlessly. I found myself doing the wrong thing.” Tatum, 44, told me how, in a funk, she met Alan Garcia, 33, “a drug addict who was panhandling,” and bought coke. I told her she was charged with buying crack, too.

“It’s both?” she asked, surprised. “I didn’t even know what I was buying!”

Tatum wants to reach out to the dealer, who was charged with a felony, while she faces a misdemeanor drug-possession charge. “I’m going to try to see if I can help him. He’s not a drug dealer. He’s a panhandler who sold drugs. I’m going to talk to my lawyer.”

[From the New York Post]

“It’s both?” Oh I love that. How naive and precious you are, Tatum O’Neal. I think that was the point in the article when I no longer bought it. Up until then I was still trying to go with the whole “the death of my dog made me want to use crack,” thing, even though I couldn’t imagine going there myself. But everyone has a right to their own emotions, and I’m sure some people are that attached to their pets. And I even tried to go with the whole, “I’m just wandering around, thinking about buying a soda, and I bought some crack instead,” idea. But to pretend to not even know what she was buying or know what she was charged with is utterly ridiculous. Come on, you had to find out from a Post reporter? Too far.

Get this. Tatum, who’s never been in jail before, is glad she was busted. “It was a shock to me, and a huge wakeup call. I’m eternally grateful, as sort of grim as the situation was, that I didn’t get to do what my disease was telling me to do. I’m still going to get my year on July 10!”

How can you not love her?

Eighteen hours behind bars wasn’t so bad. “I slept on a mattress with a couple of ladies because I was tired,” she giggled. “And they were nice! And I thought the thing that was cool about New York, no special treatment. No special cell.

[From the New York Post]

I really hope Tatum gets better, and does whatever it takes to keep her addiction under control. I’m guessing part of that will involve getting real with herself, which I don’t think she’s done yet.

Here’s Tatum O’Neal at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 25th. PR Photos doesn’t list the people with her, but they look like her three kids with ex-husband John McEnroe. Images thanks to PR Photos.