Photo: New York Post

Tatum O’Neal is claiming that she is relieved that she was caught by police buying cocaine and crack from a guy on the street.

Tatum called the New York Post to proclaim,

The first thing that pops in my head is - that sounds like an addict talking.

Anyhow, she went on, using her dog’s death as an excuse for her attempt at a relapse.

“There’s no excuse for what I did,” Tatum told the Post. “I lost my Scottish terrier, Lena. That seemed to set me off. She got old. She got cancer. She was the fabric of our family. We had to let her go to heaven. My daughter and I had to put her down. It was too horrible for words.

“I couldn’t get out of it. I was going to my psychiatrist. I was doing everything I could do. I have the disease of alcoholism. It’s lifelong. I treat it every day by going to my 12-step program.”

She goes on to explain that the death of her 16 year-old dog brought back memories of losing her mother.

“It triggered that my mother passed away [from addiction] in ‘98. My father [actor Ryan O'Neal] and I are estranged.”

I want to believe Tatum, I really do. But for some reason I don’t. Not that I think she does it all the time anymore - or if she does, she hides it well. That could be the case as there are a lot of ‘functional’ addicts out there. And some are really good at hiding it . . and lying about it.

Regardless, I love Tatum and I hope she has been sober. My gut just tells me otherwise.

Tatum O’Neal, 44, was arrested in New York last night after she was spotted handing a drug dealer cash in exchange for drugs.

O’Neal is no stranger to drug use, she’s admitted in the past to using cocaine and even heroin. However, in her 2004 memoir, A Paper Life, she claimed she had been clean since completing rehab in 1996.

O’Neal was arrested at 7:30 p.m. Sunday after trying to buy crack from a 33-year-old man, who was also arrested. Police found cocaine and crack on her, along with an unused crack pipe.

She spent the night in jail and has been charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance.

Tatum begged police to let her go, “You know who I am, right?”, she said. She claimed to be doing research for a role, “I’m doing this for a part as a junkie.” Bitch has enough experience as a junkie, she doesn’t need to research!

Anyhow, after that tactic didn’t work she simply asked, “Can’t we just forget about this?”

Tatum’s mother, actress Joanna Moore, abandoned her when she was a kid. Her mother was also a well known drug abuser. She died in 1997 at the age of 63, from lung cancer.