so many years playing these exact same characters that didn t really change. so people were less comfortable seeing them, you know, try different things. narrator: for todd bridges, the lack of roles and work led to heavier substance abuse. brown: todd has been very open with his problems withy drug use, and he said it started at a very young age. in fact he says at 16, he started using drugs, and for todd, this kind of spiraled out of control. he went from experimenting with different drugs to kind of slowly going into full addiction and being fully addicted to cocaine. narrator: just three short years after diff rent strokes left the air, todd bridges raging crack habit left him flat-out broke and desperately addicted. on february 2, 1989, police found bridges in a run-down crack den next to a local drug dealer who had been shot eight times. brown: police say that he was stumbling out the crack house. when they saw he saw them coming, he ran back in.