Blind Item #2 - Spiked - A Birdie Blind Item

In a recent spot for private rehab services, this former child actor confessed to have started drinking prior to kindergarten. According to a friend and former neighbor of the family though, it started even earlier. The mother, prior to becoming a momager, would add a little whiskey to her infant son's formula. It helped with the teething, she said, and also helped with the crying, which always made her hangovers worse.

By the time he got the role on the successful sit com, certain men from the network didn't even need to ply him with booze - he was often already drunk. When the suits ultimately intervened - not, you understand, with the men, but with the parents, demanding they keep the liquor cabinet locked - things took an even worse turn. Now he "needed" the men as much as they wanted him.

This was also when one of his fellow cast mates also took up the bottle, although not the one whose character you would expect it from. This person's troubles would take years to literally catch up with them, on the side of the road, but before the show was canceled there were many days where the only thing consumed on set or off was booze.

You might suspect that some of this may have led to the show's cancellation - that it got "spiked." The reason though was another cast member, who after all he had seen and been through, went to another extreme, where he remains today.