Academy Award winning actress Tatum O'Neal departs from the criminal court after being arrested on drug related charges in New York on Monday. O'Neal, the former child actress who chronicled her struggles with addiction in a 2004 memoir, was arrested on suspicion of buying drugs on the streets of New York City on Sunday, police said on Monday.- Xinhua/Reuters

Hollywood actress Tatum O'Neal talked to the New York Post and said the cocaine-possession arrest on Sunday night saved her.

"I'm still sober!" the 44-year-old actress told the newspaper in a phone call shortly after being released from custody Monday.

"Just when I was about to change that and wreck my life, the cops came and saved me! I was saved by the bell, by the guys in the Seventh Precinct."

The former child star was arrested Sunday night during a routine drug sweep in her Lower East Side neighborhood. She was spotted exchanging money with a man.

Though O'Neal allegedly told cops she was "doing research" for a film role, two bags of cocaine were found in her pants pocket when she was arrested, according to the police.

The former child star, who chronicled her recovery from a heroin addiction in her 2004 book "A Paper Life," is due back in court July 28 to face a misdemeanor charge of possession of a controlled substance.

O'Neal, at age 10, won an Academy Award for best supporting actress for 1973's "Paper Moon," becoming the youngest person ever to win an Oscar. Three years later, her US$350,000 paycheck for "The Bad News Bears" made her Hollywood's highest-paid child star.