It's a well-known fact that in the 1980s, everyone did cocaine all the time. But how did people come down from their drug highs? In Alec Baldwin's case, sobriety arrived through destroying enormous insect aliens!

This is just one element of the absolutely insane story Baldwin tells actor Christopher Kennedy Lawford for Moments of Clarity, Lawford's new book about addiction. Back when Baldwin was the trim, hirsute nighttime soap star you see pictured, he often found himself in druggy, boozy parties late at night, and why not? Naturally, he would cope with his inebriation by driving to an arcade warehouse at sunup to play Galaga. As you do.

"I would play video games from, like, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., and I would wind down. Then I'd go home and go to bed," Baldwin writes.

"This was the only way I could go 'beta' and go into that state I needed to be, where I could calm down and take my mind off everything. I didn't want to see anybody, talk to anybody, deal with anybody."

A "moment of clarity" came when he saw pity in the face of Julian, the person who ran the parlor.

"I was doing a show then [Knots Landing], making tens of thousands of dollars a week, which was part of the problem," he writes.

"Julian would put the key in the lock and open the door, and he would just kind of look at me like, 'Wow, I'm glad I'm not you.' "

Baldwin agreed. "You got no idea, Julian. Julian, I need you. I need you to get that key and open the f- - -ing door and let me in. I got to play 'Galaga.' "

Lost in the videogame's tractor beam, Baldwin found an addiction that could replace any cheap thrill produced by alcohol or drugs. Who needs chemical highs when you have the high scores of the sequel to Galaxian? Donkey Kong, the Burgertime chef, that cheap floozy Ms. Pac-Man...they don't judge, or ask why your lapel smells like Wild Turkey and hashish. They just beep and bop and beep and bop, providing a support group as pixellated as a drugged actor's eyes.