Burt Reynolds hopes his fight with drugs helps others

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Burt Reynolds has gone public with his battle against an addiction to painkillers, hoping his story will help others in a similar situation.

Reynolds' manager Erik Kritzer said in a widely reported statement that the 73-year-old actor had checked into a drug rehab clinic to receive treatment for an addiction to painkillers that were prescribed following back surgery.

Kritzer did not give details on when or where Reynolds was treated but he did later say the actor had been released from the rehab clinic in Florida already.

"After a recent back surgery, Mr. Reynolds felt like he was going through hell and after a while, realized he was a prisoner of prescription pain pills," Kritzer said in the statement reported on CNN and other media outlets.

"He checked himself into rehab in order to regain control of his life. Mr. Reynolds hopes his story will help others in a similar situation. He hopes they will not try to solve the problem by themselves, but realize that sometimes it is too tough to do on their own and they should seek help, as he did."

Reynolds is the star of such films as "Deliverance," "Smokey and the Bandit" and 1997's "Boogie Nights," which put his career back on track after a few rocky years and won him a Golden Globe award for his role as porn king Jack Horner.

The actor previously confessed to a reliance on the sleep medication Halcion after using the drug to ease the pain he felt from a joint disorder in the 1980s that followed a broken jaw.

(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Miral Fahmy.)