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When "Working Girl" Melanie Griffith turned 40, she decided it was time to do something different with her life. What she didn't count on though, was that along with her website for women, One World Live, and her acting career, she'd face one of the most difficult decisions of her life. That decision, entering a drug rehab program, was made after almost 20 years of addiction to prescription pain killers, a condition that few people in her life were aware of.

Injured almost twenty years ago in an auto accident, her physicians prescribed the pain killer, Norco, but didn't tell her that it was addictive. By the time she no longer needed the medication to control pain, she needed the feeling it gave her, and just as the heroin addicts she would join in treatment, she couldn't stop.

Griffith checked into Daniel Freeman Hospital in the Los Angeles area under the name Tallulah Bankhead in early November according to reports and spent approximately a month undergoing treatment. This was not the first time she had undergone treatment for an addiction problem. In the 1980's, following her success with "Working Girl," she entered treatment at a Minnesota clinic for cocaine and alcohol abuse and made a successful recovery. Unfortunately her addiction to painkillers did not go away, and thus she sought treatment again.

As a result of this treatment, Griffith and her husband, Antonio Banderas, missed the wedding of his "Evita" costar, Madonna, as well as that of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. These were two events that she would have almost certainly attended, since she is a close friend of Jones, and the professional link between Banderas and Madonna is strong. For many celebrities, being "seen" at an event such as these means everything, but to Griffith, it took a back seat to her desire to rid herself of her "demons".

During her stay in treatment, Griffith kept an online journal of her feelings and reactions to what was happening to her. In her first journal entry, she told her readers, "I feel it is important that I share this with you, because an addiction to prescribed pain pills can happen to anyone, and you have to be careful. Please if you are on any kind of medication, ask your doctor to explain the side effects and the possible addictive qualities of the drug." She also extolled the virtues of Yoga and how it helped her learn the patience and the inner peace to deal with her recovery process, as well as how acupuncture and magnetic therapy have helped her deal with addiction.

Near Christmas, her journal carried a message that seems to sum up Griffith's view of life, "The road to a better life begins with a decision you can make." Whether it was her decision to open One World Live or to seek treatment for her addiction, one thing is certain. Melanie Griffith is a woman who is not afraid to take control of her life and work toward making it better, and in her website she passes that strength on to her readers.