This image was lost some time after publication.

Sitting down with the Associated Press at the Toronto Film Festival back in September to promote his new movie Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, Robert Downey Jr., the poster boy for drug abuse, made one thing crystal clear:


"I think part of my destiny has to be realizing that I'm not the poster boy for drug abuse," Downey told The AP at the Toronto International Film Festival.


Fine. If he isn't its poster boy, then he's its billboard man. You literally cannot take your eyes off him; he's like a particularly excruciating Jenga tower just waiting to topple over.

For those of you out there who may find themselves travelling down similarly dark, black tar heroin-paved, needle-strewn roads, fear not. There are ways out. You will beat this. And you will work again. All you need is courage, strength, and your A-list Hollywood buddies to call in some favors:

First among the connections is producer Joel Silver, who gave Downey an early break on the 1985 teen comedy Weird Science. Twenty years later, Silver produced Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, after also overseeing Downey on the comeback trail in 2003's Gothika, the actor's first studio flick since putting his drug and alcohol problems to rest.

Gothika also was the film on which Downey met Susan Levin, one of Silver's producing partners. Downey and Levin were married in August.

Helping Downey land his role in Gothika was old buddy Mel Gibson, with whom he co-starred in 1990's Air America. Gibson, who also produced and co-starred in Downey's 2003 musical fantasy The Singing Detective, called Silver on Downey's behalf.

Val Kilmer, his Kiss co-star, also provides this quote, which gave us an instant blogging boner:

'I remember literally aching from laughing, with him telling the darkest story you could ever imagine because we'd just passed a motel where he'd spent three weeks one night waiting for the guy to come," said Kilmer, adding he was confident Downey had left that life behind. "I'm a romantic. I hope for the best, and I think the whole town's rooting for him.'

We appreciate Kilmer's valiant stab at Defamer's take on the freeform Aristocrats-type joke, the Downey/Spader/Chateau Recollection, but we must remind all players that formatting rules require you to end all riffs with the phrase "Hey, that s drugs.