The actor became dependent on alcohol as he would drink day in and day out. The years of drinking led the "St. Elmo's Fire" actor to truly hit rock bottom at just 26 years old. The 1988 sex tape scandal that knocked his career off track helped him find his way. In 2019, Lowe would call the tape "the best thing that ever happened to me ... because it got me sober," during his one-man show "Stories I Only Tell My Friends: LIVE!" via People.
Two years after the tape, in 1990, Lowe arrived back at his place after a late night of partying. A normal day turned into a nightmare when he received a panicked message from his mother, Barbara Helper. The actor's mother told Lowe that his grandfather had suffered a heart attack. Helper begged Lowe to pick up the phone, but he didn't.
Lowe said in an interview with People, "I remember going into the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror and my thought process was, 'You need to drink directly from this bottle of Cuervo Gold so you can go to sleep, so you can wake up, so you can deal with this." He went on, "Out of all the things that had gone on in my life, that was the thing where finally I went, 'This is no way to live.' I went to rehab 48 hours later." From that day, the actor completely turned his life around.
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