PRISON IS AWFUL BUT DRUG-ABUSING ACTOR SAYS IT'S MOTIVATION TO CHANGE HIS LIFE

NEW YORK - (Associated Press) Though he describes his first days in prison
as awful, Robert Downey Jr. says the experience has motivated him to change
his life.

"I would have been the first to say it's unconstitutional, to put drug
abusers in jail or prison. Well, it's unconstitutional to be a human being
and screw your life up that way," the 35-year-old actor says in the October
issue of Details magazine. "I wouldn't wish my experience on an enemy. But
there was value in it."

Downey was jailed in June 1999 after he admitted during a probation hearing
that he missed scheduled drug tests. He was sentenced to three years in
prison for violating his probation but gained early release last month.

Downey then moved into Walden House, a facility he had previously lived in
while trying to end his drug problem.

This fall he will have a recurring role on the Fox series Ally McBeal,
playing a mysterious stranger who seems able to connect with the
complicated Ally, played by Calista Flockhart.