‘Animal House’ star Tim Matheson says he was ‘lucky’ not to be a cocaine addict

Tim Matheson says he’s lucky he never got too involved with cocaine. He says he played hard, but he was too concerned about how the white stuff would affect his work to become addicted.

The star of “Animal House” spoke with Page six about his new memoir, “Damn Glad to Meet You” — a reference to a line his character says about future promises in the iconic sorority film — and explains that because he was a working actor, he was afraid to to throw up in coke.

Basically, Matheson says he wasn’t a star and was living paycheck to paycheck… and he was well aware that he could lose his income unless he continued to perform well.

That said, Tim says he didn’t shy away from the stuff completely… but he didn’t use it as often as some of his contemporaries higher up on the call sheet.

One of those contemporaries… John Belushi — who died in 1982 at the age of 33 of a cocaine and heroin overdose.

Matheson says part of the problem is that everyone in his generation said cocaine wasn’t that bad for you. That is clearly not the case.

TM has had quite a career since ‘Animal House’… appearing in ‘The West Wing’, ‘Hart of Dixie’, ‘Fletch’, ‘Batman: The Animated Series’, ‘Black Sheep’, ‘Van Wilder’ and ‘Virgin River’.