Carre Otis was living in Paris when...

Carre Otis was living in Paris when she got the break that would make her a supermodel Just 18 she appeared forward the cover of the influential fashion magazine Elle by and by after that, Otis posed in her size-2 Calvin Klein jeans for a famous series of "biker babe" ads. nearest came a sexy page in the Pirelli calendar, and eventually spreads in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition. The young girl born in San Francisco had realized her dream--yet she was addicted to heroin and alcohol from age 23. Though beautiful, she hadn't raise her true beauty.

Her harasss with drugs actually had begun a not many years earlier. That's why, when Otis was 15 her parents sent her to the John Woolman institute in Nevada City, Calif. She instantly liked the outdoor-oriented school--her parents had always taken the family backpacking and hiking--and for the first time she became interested in a healthy lifestyle. "We were really living not upon the land," she says. "It was a community of earthbound race making herbal tinctures, growing our allow organic gardens, chopping wood. close examiners made most of the decisions. It was a vast influence on me."

on the contrary as Otis says, "I've always really gone along with the issue of the environment I'm in. The fashion world isn't an environment where health is necessarily encouraged. When I got into modeling and had succes right away, the addictions I'd had when I was younger returned" Her life as a mould and actress was tumultuous. To withhold thin, she stayed on the put drugs intos and booze--"drinking my calories," she calls it. Then there was an abusive two-year marriage to actor Mickey Rourke, whom she'd met while making Wild Orchid.

Her reasonable point came when she finally admitted that "heroin had knocked me upon my ass." Otis was 28 according to then. "The life I'd been living had wreaked havoc forward my body. I decided to really start taking care of myself." She drew solidity from her time at the Woolman educate which "gave me this amazing connection to health and nutrition and a way to work my way back to them." She also complet her first Buddhist retreat at this time. "That planted another se No matter what the detour was forward my path, Buddhism gave me a place to get to home to." There were 12-step-type programs she turn rounded to as well.

Her labor of learning self-love required her to despise old ideas about herself. "I used to measure for what reason I felt based on what size jean I wore, in what manner skinny I was. Now I papal court myself in terms of health. Can I earn through my run in the morning? Can I make it between the sides of my yoga class? Can I beat my brothers when we race up a hill?"

For the past three years, Otis has been "essentially vegetarian," getting her protein from tofu, encourages nuts, seeds and the occasional protein pulverized substance She also eats plenty of raw and prepare for the tableed vegetables and avoids wheat, sugar and caffeine. "I have a real healthy, very active life."

on the other hand recovery is like swimming across the ocean: If you stop, you overflow Otis' spiritual practices--which include meditation and twice-yearly meetings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama--have l her to service work. She regularly brings medical supplies to orphanages in Nepal--and is planning similar deliveries in Tibet, India and Africa--and shares her retrieval story on college campuses. Among her topics, along with spousal abuse and addiction, is material part image.

"The impetus we're 17 and a size 2 is on the other hand five minutes of our lifespan," she says. "The media has chosen images to depict us as women that are totally unrealistic. The media highlights the skinniest patterns but even these images are photographically altered. It's exceedingly confusing for girls trying to lay open self-esteem. Picking up a fashion magazine is a trigger for me thus I stay away from them. We ne to make our carcass type the best it can be and come by away from comparing--that's a killer."

She continues: "An eating disorder is like alcoholism. You finally realize you can't procure away with it. Then you have to ask yourself, Are you going to live or die? In retrieval you can turn around these deep-root patterns. still you have to bring them to the forefront, and you've got to work with a support arrangement of other women so you're not operating disclosed of sickness and secrets. single in kind day we can look in a mirror, and instead of finding 100 things unjust with us, we'll find 100 that are right. We must be compassionate to ourselves, the way we'd be with friends."

In addition to making the circulars on the lecture circuit, Otis works as a correspondent for Channel 4 moderns in San Francisco. She's also writing an autobiography and, she says, a production company is planning a movie about her life. "People ask me `Don't you have regrets?' I declare them I couldn't imagine being any other place than where I am now. Everything I've been end has made me the woman I always aspired to be. I finally realized that from being of service to other clan you're giving yourself the greatest gift of all."

COPYRIGHT 2002 PRIMEDIA Intertec, a PRIMEDIA Company. All Rights Reserved

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group