Country Strong, the new Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim McGraw, Leighton Meester, etc. and so forth film, opens in theaters everywhere today.

The film has Paltrow portraying Kelly Canter, a once-super-successful-but-now-trying-to-make-a-comeback country music singer who, in order to make that comeback, has to battle her alcohol and drug addiction. And, in order to prepare for her role as an addict, Paltrow turned to her Iron Man co-star and real-life addiction battler (Firefox isn’t underlining that so I’m assuming it’s a word) Robert Downey, Jr.

I just couldn’t understand how you could be so drunk that you could wreck people’s lives and then wake up the next day and pretend everything was fine. I struggled with that.

During an interview with Reuters, Paltrow credits Downey, Jr. for helping her better understand addiction, stating the actor was “really articulate about addiction and the psychology behind it” and that “he really helped [her] a lot.”

Last year (by which, of course, I mean last week) I posted The Top 6 Celebrity Mental Health Advocates of 2010, a list that included the likes of Glenn Close, Joey Pantoliano, and Ron Artest (whose PSA on mental health awareness has been debuted, by the way).

Although most of the celebrities on the list made some sort of contribution (be it time, money, or passion) to the mental health community directly, it’s no secret that other kinds of advocacy and charity work can benefit the public’s mental and emotional well-being, as well.

DoSomething.org recently posted its Top 20 Celebs Gone Good, a list that includes 20 celebrities who in some way contributed to charity work during 2010.

The list includes famous faces like:

Well, he’s nowhere near winning the poll for which celebrity should take a mental health year, but David Arquette has apparently checked himself into rehab, anyway.

According to TMZ, Arquette, who’s been dealing with his split from actress Courtney Cox in a very public and perhaps not-so-healthy way, checked himself into rehab over the holiday weekend “for alcohol and other issues.”

Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com

Forget the celebs for a minute: If getting your own creative juices flowing is part of your 2011 New Year’s resolutions, then maybe you’ll want to check out the It’s All In Her Head: Women Making Peace With Troubled Minds call for submissions.

Former university professor and current author and editor Laura M. Andre is the mastermind behind the upcoming anthology, It’s All In Her Head.

Andre is currently seeking submissions for the book, which will be a collection of “first-person, literary non-fiction essays (please, no poetry) from established writers and talented emerging voices detailing [their experiences] with a mental health issue, and how [they've] learned to make peace with it”: