addslashes problem ..

I have to use addslashes on a string of mine so I can use it in a javascript function, so that when a link is clicked, a html textarea box is populated with that string. The problem I have is that if there are line breaks in the string, the <br>'s seem to get created when addslashes is run on the string, then in the textarea box my string looks like: i can't do that<br>right now<br>but maybe later<br> How can I get the slashes escaped properly, but keep the same format? I tried this: $RESPONSE = eregi_replace('<br[[:space:]]*/?[[:space:]]*>', "\n", $RESPONSE); but it didn't work for me, it just kinda merged all the strings together, no line breaks (or <br>'s) at all. Thanks, Chad