KEACH TELLS HOUSE PANEL OF HIS HABIT

Actor Stacy Keach, back in the United States after serving a six-month jail sentence in England for smuggling cocaine, told a congressional hearing Tuesday: “There is no greater imprisonment than that of being dependent on any chemical substance for one’s existence.”

Keach, making his first public statement about his addiction, declared, “By far, the worst form of incarceration is to be trapped within one’s own powerlessness to help oneself.”

Speaking to members of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control and to a news conference afterward, the star of the CBS television show “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer” appeared pale as he talked of how he began using cocaine at a social occasion, only to have it take over his life.

“You can’t imagine yourself going to work or going anywhere without that bottle in your pocket,” said Keach, 44. “It creates a full sense of energy, gives you the feeling you can work 20 hours a day. Then that feeling is followed by a tremendous depression that lasts about 20 to 30 minutes. And the only way to alleviate that exhaustion was by going back to the drug.”

Keach said it was his arrest at London’s Heathrow Airport on April 3, 1984, that made him realize cocaine was controlling his life and that he must stop using it. He had been “not a heavy user, but a continual user, for nine years,” he said.

The arrest and subsequent recovery period were “such a trauma, it brings you to your knees,” said Keach. “It’s a step-by-step process, and you cannot do it alone.”

What helped Keach, he said, was his renewed faith in God and Bible classes he attended while in prison. He attended one session of Cocaine Anonymous while in jail and was prescribed the drug L-Tryptophan, an anti-depressant or sleeping pill, for two weeks. He did not participate in any other kinds of rehabilitative therapy, he said.

“I didn’t go through traditional withdrawal--that varies from individual to individual,” Keach recalled. “That is not to say one is completely cured of the desire for drugs. It really is a day-to-day situation.

“It’s not something you miss every minute of the day. It will be maybe a flash: ‘Gee, wouldn’t that be nice?’ But I’ve come to equate that white powder with death. I’m still a fledgling at getting back into society. . . . That will be the real test for my discipline. I hope I can walk as I talk.”

Keach, who signed autographs during a recess in the hearing, said he is working on a drug abuse documentary and another anti-drug film. He also hopes to return to CBS as Mike Hammer in a two-hour made-for-TV movie that is expected to air next winter. If it succeeds, the series--which CBS canceled after Keach’s arrest--may be renewed.

But “my greatest rehabilitation factor,” Keach said, “is extending myself to other people--that’s my insurance policy against going back to it.”

A connection existed between the dramatic rise in his success and his need for the drug, he said, adding, “In the early days (of becoming well known) you don’t feel secure enough to deal with it.”

Keach told the committee, “My initial experience with cocaine was fairly typical for most first-time users. I felt euphoric, self-confident, alert and even creative. Within a few short months, cocaine became an integral part of my life, but I still foolishly and blindly refused to abandon the notion that I could take it or leave it.

“It always deludes the user into feeling that he or she is in complete control until it is too late. I was unable to face the truth that the drug had begun to dominate my life . . . that I was helplessly at its mercy.”

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), the committee chairman, asked Keach what can be done to prevent drug abuse, and Keach lauded the DARE program--Drug Abuse Resistance Education, which he said “originated in Southern California by the combined efforts of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Board of Education. It is proving to be enormously successful in teaching fifth- and sixth-graders to resist peer pressure and to say no to drugs.”

The actor said he was well treated at Reading Prison in England and denied reports that he was attacked by fellow prisoners or that he used marijuana while in jail.

He said he received a call from First Lady Nancy Reagan, a staunch opponent of drug abuse, who apologized for not being able to attend the hearing.