Sharon Stone Says Only Her Dad Came to Her Aid After Nearly Dying (Exclusive)

Sharon Stone says only her father was there for her during one of the darkest times of her life.

In 2001, the actress was given a 1 percent chance of living after a ruptured vertebral artery bled into her brain for nine days.

“My father was there for me, but I would say that was about it,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue, while looking back on that period. “I understand if you want to live with solid citizens, don’t come to Hollywood.”

Before her health incident, Stone, 65, was thriving both professionally and personally. She had received her first Oscar nomination for Casino five years prior. And months before, she had adopted her son Roan, now 23, with her husband, newspaper editor Phil Bronstein. (She has since adopted two more children: sons Laird, 18, and Quinn, 17.)

But following the incident, her marriage fell apart (she and Bronstein divorced in 2004), and, she says, Hollywood stopped calling. 

 “I lost everything,” she says. “I lost all my money. I lost custody of my child. I lost my career. I lost all those things that you feel are your real identity and your life.”

“I never really got most of it back,” she adds, “but I’ve reached a point where I’m okay with it, where I really do recognize that I’m enough.”

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Today, she’s on the board of the Barrow Neurological Foundation, which supports the medical institute Stone’s brain surgeon Dr. Michael Lawton leads in Arizona, and is hosting its annual Neuro Night fundraiser on Oct. 27. Per its website, the Foundation’s mission is “saving human lives through innovative treatment, groundbreaking, curative research and educating the next generation of the world’s leading neuro clinicians.”

“She’s an inspiration to those who suffer from anything neurological,” says Lawton, whom Stone credits for saving her life.

She also keeps busy painting and playing games of pickleball — two passions she once never thought possible. Pickleball is “just so much fun,” says Stone, while painting, she says, “helped me find my pure center.”

For more about Stone, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.