'The Canyons' Director: Lindsay Lohan Is Battling The Bottle -- But It's Pills, Not Booze

Paul Schrader, Lindsay Lohan's director in her new movie The Canyons, says the enigmatic star's deepest-seeded substance abuse issues lie in prescription drugs, not alcohol or street drugs.

"I honestly think it’s the Adderall," Schrader told the L.A. Times' Movies Now. "It’s the most abused drug for young girls in the country.

"It kills your appetite, allows you to stay up and hyper-concentrate.”

(The drug is no stranger in Hollywood circles, as famous faces including Amanda Bynes, Demi Moore and Brooke Mueller have been linked to using it.)

As for drinking, Schrader says Lindsay's "not an alcoholic," and actually has a very low tolerance towards booze.

"She is a cheap drunk … a couple of glasses of wine and she shows the effects."

Schrader he anticipated that putting LiLo in the project would make for "psychodrama" -- and it was!

“Lindsay does live in a world of created drama; she seems to live in a cone of crisis. A lot of it is unnecessary," he said. "You want to say to Lindsay, ‘Why are we in this emotional upheaval?’

"More than once I said to her, ‘It really must be hard to be you.’”

Schrader earlier told IndieWire he welcomed the controversy of putting the tabloid queen, porn stud James Deen, and mercurial screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis on the same project, then watching the sparks fly.

“To be honest, it’s something we created. We stirred the pot, simply with the casting of Lindsay and James," Schrader said. "Lindsay brings with her, her drama, and then Bret, he has a very promiscuous Twitter finger, and he can always be relied upon to upset somebody with some tweet.”

The Canyons will be in theaters Friday in New York and Los Angeles, and VOD and iTunes next week.