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Tag: celebs & sobriety

  • Daniel Radcliffe Used Alcohol To Cope With Fame

    Daniel Radcliffe Used Alcohol To Cope With Fame

    Radcliffe discussed his past relationship with alcohol and decision to get sober on “Off Camera With Sam Jones.”

    Actor Daniel Radcliffe, who shot to fame when he was cast as Harry Potter, said that he used alcohol to cope with his sudden fame. 

    Radcliffe was discussing his sobriety on “Off Camera With Sam Jones.” According to E! News, Radcliffe was uncomfortable with how often he was recognized in his teens after he starred in the Harry Potter films. He would drink to cope with that anxiety, but realized that just led to more attention. 

    “There is an awareness that I really struggled with particularly in my late teens when I was going out to places for the first time where you would feel…again it could have largely been in my head but…you would feel watched when you went into a bar, when you went into a pub,” said Radcliffe, who is now 29. “Then, in my case, the quickest way of forgetting about the fact that you were being watched was to get very drunk and then as you get very drunk, you become aware that, oh people are watching more now because now I’m getting very drunk, so I should probably drink more to ignore that more.”

    Radcliffe said that it took him some time to break this cycle, but he was able to do it with the help of family. 

    “It took a few years and it took a couple of attempts. Ultimately, it was my own decision…I woke up one morning after a night going, ‘This is probably not good.’”

    He said in part his excessive drinking was an attempt to reconcile his new lifestyle. 

    “When I think of the sort of chaos that I used to invite into my life, I’m really much happier now and I think there was some part of me that was like actors have to be like crazy, cool drunks. I have to live up to this weird image that I have in my head of what it is to be a famous actor or something.”

    He also felt that he couldn’t be open about the downsides of his fame. 

    “Part of the thing is the expectation that you should just be delighted all the time. You have a great job, you’re wealthy, you don’t have a right to ever feel sad or to not be excited about the whole thing all the time and I think that’s a pressure as well.”

    Despite the challenges, he said he’s still grateful for the role that defined his career. 

    “Even at the lowest point, I still loved my job so much and I loved going to set and there was never a day where my own shit would affect how I was on set. There was never a point where I was like ‘I wished this didn’t happen to me. I wish I wasn’t Harry Potter,’ like that just didn’t happen.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ariana Grande Celebrates Brother's Sober Milestone

    Ariana Grande Celebrates Brother's Sober Milestone

    Ariana and Frankie Grande took to social media to celebrate his sober milestone.

    Ariana Grande tweeted out an emotional congratulations to her brother, Frankie Grande, helping him celebrate 20 months without drugs or alcohol. 

    Ariana said in a tweet that she struggled to find the words to acknowledge the milestone for her 36-year-old brother. 

    “man, i love u @FrankieJGrande. happy. twenty. months. been staring at this drafting n deleting bc everything i write makes me cry. jus know i think you’re a superhero and u make me v proud. everyone knows how hard this is and how strong you’ve been. congratulations and thank god.”

    Frankie has previously said that Ariana’s former boyfriend Mac Miller, who died of an overdose last September, helped him get sober. 

    “He was the reason I went to the rehabilitation center where I was detoxed safely from all of the drugs alcohol and medications I was taking, when I couldn’t imagine living without them,” Frankie said. “It was the place where I found the community of support that showed me that living life without drugs was a possibility and I would have never discovered that if it weren’t for Malcolm.”

    This week, Frankie took to Instagram to discuss the ways that sobriety has changed his life. 

    “i have 20 months sober. i am extremely proud,” he wrote in the post. “this hasn’t been easy. when you get sober… life still happens. you have to deal with all the same highs and lows as you did when you were using but now you don’t have the ability to numb yourself. you feel it. you feel everything. good and bad. but there is also beauty in that. over the past 20 months i have felt loss but i have also felt love. i felt joy but i also felt grief. but the bottom line is… i felt. and that is such a gift. 

    Today, Frankie said, he looks forward to the future with excitement, rather than the anxiety he experienced when he was using.

    “today, when i look in the mirror i see a completely different man than i did 20 months ago. i see a man who knows that everything is exactly as it is meant to be. a man liberated from the prison of being stuck in the past or obsessing over the future. a man grateful for his life… exactly as it is. a man excited for the next chapter… and ready to face it… no matter what…. sober.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Charlie Sheen Shares Moment That Led Him To Become Sober

    Charlie Sheen Shares Moment That Led Him To Become Sober

    “If you can’t be available for the basic necessity of being there for your children, then something really needs to shift,” Sheen explained. 

    Actor Charlie Sheen’s drug use—and sobriety—has been a pursuit held in the public eye for years, but in a recent interview, he shared the very private moment which inspired him to change his life for the better for his family and himself.  

    Speaking with Us Weekly, Sheen said it was a request from his daughter for help, and his inability to provide it due to his inebriated state, that forced him to take a look at his behavior.

    “If you can’t be available for the basic necessity of being there for your children, then something really needs to shift,” he explained. Sheen, who recently reached a year of sobriety, added that he is putting his newfound focus and energy into “daily responsibilities,” including his children and his own health.

    In the interview, Sheen recalled the moment when one of his daughters asked him for help in getting to a pressing appointment. “I’d already had a few drinks,” he said, and was forced to call a friend to take him and his daughter to her destination. On the way back, Sheen said, he began to turn over the situation in his head.

    “On the drive back, I was just like, ‘Damn, man, I’m not available,’” he recalled. “‘I’m just not responsible and there’s no nobility in that.’” Sheen said that after pondering the reality of his condition, he decided to take matters seriously. “It was the next day that I said, ‘All right, it’s time. Let’s give this a shot.’”

    With the help of parents, Martin and Janet Sheen, his ex-wives, and friends, Sheen began to amass days of sobriety. “A month went by, a couple of months went by, I’m like, ‘All right. This feels good,’” he said.

    After marking his year in sobriety in December of 2018, Sheen said that he feels “excited to be excited again,” and has devoted his time and energy to his family and his own well-being.

    As for acting, Sheen told Us Weekly that he would like to do a Two and a Half Men revival to gain “closure” on the series, from which he was fired under a cloud of controversy in its ninth season.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Demi Lovato Celebrates Six Months Of Sobriety

    Demi Lovato Celebrates Six Months Of Sobriety

    Demi Lovato took to Instagram to acknowledge her sober milestone.

    Six months after an overdose led to her hospitalization, singer and actress Demi Lovato is celebrating her recovery. 

    On Friday, Jan. 25, according to People, Lovato shared a photo of her six-month sobriety medallion on her Instagram story. She also shared a photo of a Funfetti dessert from Susiecakes along with a note that read “Happy 6 Mo. We are so f—ing proud of you,” which she captioned “Best day ever.”

    On July 24, 2018, Lovato was reportedly hospitalized after overdosing in her home in Hollywood Hills. According to People, she remained hospitalized for about two weeks before leaving the hospital for an inpatient treatment facility. 

    In August, she posted a message to her Instagram account, which was her first post on social media since the incident.

    “I have always been transparent about my journey with addiction,” she wrote. “What I’ve learned is that this illness is not something that disappears or fades with time. It is something I must continue to overcome and have not done yet. I want to thank God for keeping me alive and well.” 

    “To my fans, I am forever grateful for all of your love and support throughout this past week and beyond. Your positive thoughts and prayers have helped me navigate through this difficult time,” Lovato added.

    In November after leaving treatment, according to People, a source reported that Lovato was focusing on maintaining her recovery after the overdose.

    “Demi seems to be doing well,” the source stated, according to People. “She looks really good and is in a great mood. She also seems happy about being out and about, but her focus is definitely still her recovery. She attends meetings and receives treatment. Her number one priority seems to be her health.”

    Lovato again reached out to her fans on social media in December, when she posted a number of tweets about her recovery. 

    “Someday I’ll tell the world what exactly happened, why it happened and what my life is like today.. but…I still need space and time to heal,” she wrote. “All my fans need to know is I’m working hard on myself, I’m happy and clean and I’m SO grateful for their support. … I’m so blessed I get to take this time to be with family, relax, work on my mind, body and soul and come back when I’m ready.”

    Then, to ring in the New Year, Lovato again posted on her Instagram story and stated she was thankful for the previous year. She reportedly spent the night celebrating with sparkling cider and her sober friend Henry Levy, who, according to People, has been rumored to be her boyfriend.

    “So grateful for the lessons I’ve learned this year,” Lovato wrote. “I will never take another day in life for granted, even the bad ones. Thankful for my fans, friends, family, and everyone who supported me throughout this year. God bless.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Rob Lowe Talks Replacing Alcohol With Exercise

    Rob Lowe Talks Replacing Alcohol With Exercise

    “It became an outlet for all of the tension, stresses, compulsivity. I funneled the addiction, frankly, into that,” said the Parks & Rec actor. 

    More than 28 years ago, actor Rob Lowe hit the gym to convince himself that he didn’t have a substance abuse problem. As long as he could run breakneck sprints—a quarter-mile in 60 seconds—he told himself he was okay, Lowe said in a recent interview with Men’s Health.

    Although he never lost the ability to do the sprints, at some point his alcohol abuse was undeniable. When he got sober 28 years ago he made exercise his coping mechanism. 

    “It became an outlet for all of the tension, stresses, compulsivity,” said Lowe, who got sober when he was 26. “I funneled the addiction, frankly, into that.” 

    Today, workouts are still part of the recovery program that Lowe works every day. His mornings begin with a run or a spin routine, before doing weights or circuit training. He forces himself to be present in the moment, giving himself a mental as well as a physical workout, sans music. 

    “I don’t want to have the smoothie stand. I don’t want to look at beautiful women when I work out. I like the forced mental solitude of it,” said Lowe. “Inevitably, it will force you to start working through things you’re not going to if you’re listening to Jay-Z.”

    His sons, who are 23 and 25, introduced him to surfing, and now he is more skilled at the sport than they are. It appealed to him because it complements his recovery. 

    Lowe said, “You’re always chasing a high that you’re probably not going to ever repeat. Conditions change, so no waves ever just stay the same. Nothing can ever stay the same. Nothing.”

    However, Lowe’s love for exercise isn’t all about high-brow beliefs. He admits that he loves to look good, saying, “Men deny having vanity—that’s the greatest vanity. Not me. I’m vain as fuck.”

    In addition to his workouts, Lowe maintains a strict diet inspired by Atkins. He also does intermittent fasting, replacing breakfast with a mid-morning snack. 

    Lowe, who is now 54, says he feels just as good as he did when he was newly sober in his late twenties. “I feel exactly like that guy,” he said. “And I see him.”

    In 2015, Lowe took to Twitter to celebrate 25 years of sobriety. He wrote, “To those struggling with addiction, there is true, real hope. 25 years ago today, I found recovery; and a life of promise. #Grateful”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Charlie Sheen On Sobriety: It Had To Be Done

    Charlie Sheen On Sobriety: It Had To Be Done

    “I made some changes to give myself a shot to do some cool things professionally. And I’m proud of finally being consistent. And reliable. And noble,” Sheen said.

    Charlie Sheen, who celebrated one year of sobriety in December after one of the most infamous public relapses in recent years, said that getting sober was a necessity. 

    Talking about his announcement of being one year sober, Sheen told Extra, “That was good, that was good, yes, indeed — had to be done, had to be done.” 

    Two weeks before Christmas, Sheen posted a picture of his one-year chip from Alcoholics Anonymous, adding a caption “so, THIS happened yesterday! a fabulous moment, in my renewed journey. #TotallyFocused.”

    He had formerly revealed that he had started drinking and abusing drugs after being diagnosed with HIV in 2012. However, he said that today he is in good health, physically, mentally and emotionally.  

    “I feel good,” he said. 

    Sheen was speaking at the California Strong Celebrity Softball Game, which was organized to help fund recovery efforts from natural disasters, including the fires in California. Sheen said that supporting his community in Malibu was important to him. 

    He said, “It’s where I grew up, been here since, jeez, 1970.”

    Sheen told Us Weekly, “I made some changes to give myself a shot to do some cool things professionally. And I’m proud of finally being consistent. And reliable. And noble.”

    Before his diagnosis of HIV, Sheen had been sober for 11 years, so he knows that long-term sobriety is possible, he said during an interview with Dr. Oz in 2016. 

    “There was a stretch where I didn’t drink for 11 years. No cocaine, no booze for 11 years. So I know that I have that in me,” he said, according to People.

    Despite his long-term sobriety, Sheen said that he didn’t have adequate healthy coping mechanisms to help him deal with his HIV diagnosis and the worries about what the disease would mean for his life. 

    “It was the only tool I had at the time, so I believed that would quell a lot of that angst. A lot of that fear. And it only made it worse,” he said. “It was to suffocate the anxiety and what my life was going to become with this condition and getting so numb I didn’t think about it.”

    Sheen’s father, Martin Sheen, who is in recovery from alcoholism, has spoken publicly about how hard it was to watch his son relapse, knowing there was nothing he could do to intervene. 

    “What he was going through, we were powerless to do much, except to pray for him and lift him up,” Martin Sheen said in 2015.

    However, he said that his experience with addiction has helped him to understand what his son was going through in active addiction. 

    “The best way to heal is to help healing someone else, and it takes one to know one, so you can appreciate what someone’s going through if you’ve gone there yourself,” Martin Sheen said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Artie Lange’s Celeb Friends Beg Him To Get Sober

    Artie Lange’s Celeb Friends Beg Him To Get Sober

    A group of sober comedians and actors took to Twitter to ask Lange to get help for his addictions.

    Artie Lange became well-known for his long-running gig as a sidekick and comedian on the infamous Howard Stern Show. Lange is now in the spotlight for his long-running struggle with addiction as his famous pals plead with him to go to a rehabilitation center and accept help.

    Comedians are understood to often have a dark side, and many famous comedians have succumbed to the disease of addiction, including John Belushi, Chris Farley, Lenny Bruce, Mitch Hedberg and Greg Giraldo.

    In December, Lange narrowly escaped jail time after testing positive for cocaine and amphetamine. In June 2018, Lange was given four years’ probation after pleading guilty to heroin possession found during a 2017 traffic stop.

    In December 2018, Lange shared on Instagram a photo of his self-proclaimed “hideously deformed” nose, which, according to Fox News, is the end product of accidentally snorting broken glass mixed into Oxycontin as well as almost 30 years of drug abuse.

    Lange’s friends and colleagues were quick to respond.

    Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s Richard Lewis, who has been sober since 1994, tweeted out to Lange, “Artie, this is my 1000th request over decades to beg you to surrender to your addictions. We had the most laughs sober. I love you. You’re beloved and a magnificent comedian cursed with self loathing and fear. Give it up and live.”

    Comic Jackie Martling added, “coming up to 18 years [sober] in May. in early 2001 I’d have laughed at the idea of not drinking for 18 *days.* Art, I know you know the laughs are just as hearty on this side. I love you and am of course 100% in your very crowded corner.”

    Patton Oswalt, a famous comedian who had roles in The King of Queens and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. followed up with support: “What Richard said. Come ON, Artie.”

    Final Destination actor Devon Sawa added his experience, “Sober for 12 years. My life changed. Things just keep getting better and better and better…..”

    Maurice LaMarche joined the chorus, saying, “I’m echoing @TheRichardLewis. Artie, it CAN be done. Richard’s living proof.”

    He added, “And now I’m echoing @markschiff. While we’re on the subject, I too stopped trying the desperate experiment of the first drink or drug on 1/20/89. (This is sounding like a show @JerrySeinfeld might create: Comedians In Meetings Getting Sober) C’mon, Artie. Join us. You can do it.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Samuel L. Jackson Details Past Drug Use And How He Got Sober

    Samuel L. Jackson Details Past Drug Use And How He Got Sober

    “I’d been getting high since, shit, 15, 16 years old, and I was tired as fuck,” Jackson said in a new interview.

    Years before he was getting paid millions to shout “motherfucker” at strangers on the silver screen, Samuel L. Jackson was a teenager with a drug addiction. 

    A former Black Panther, one of the workingest actors in Hollywood and a child of the segregated South, the 70-year-old oozes tough guy cool—but in this month’s Hollywood Reporter cover story, the vaunted Pulp Fiction star got real and raw about his past and what it finally took to overcome it. 

    “The whole time I was using, sure, I had a good reputation,” he said. “I showed up on time, I did my lines. I was great. But there was something that was keeping me from getting to that next place.”

    Talking about his years of addiction—before and in the early years of his career—is not something he’s shied away from before. But his latest interview offers difficult details about what rock bottom looks like for a man worth millions.

    Jackson initially got into drugs in the 1960s when a professor introduced him to acid. From there, he went on to heroin and cocaine and finally, when the crack epidemic hit, he turned to rock. Soon, that became his drug of choice, and throughout the early days of his acting career he managed to balance the two, clandestinely smoking crack outside Broadway theaters.

    But it all came to a head one day when his wife and daughter found him lying facedown on the kitchen floor, a mess of drug paraphernalia splayed out around him. They demanded he go to rehab—and finally he did. 

    “I’d been getting high since, shit, 15, 16 years old, and I was tired as fuck,” he told the magazine. 

    His first sober role was playing a person with crack addiction, a part Spike Lee offered him while he was still in treatment.

    “All the people in rehab were trying to talk me out of it,” he said. “‘You’re going to be messing around with crack pipes. All your triggers will be there. Blah, blah, blah.’ I was like, ‘You know what? If for no other reason than I never want to see you motherfuckers again, I will never pick up another drug.’ ‘Cause I hated their asses.”

    That role—playing Gator in Jungle Fever—nabbed him a best supporting actor award at Cannes and catapulted him toward stardom. That same year, he met Quentin Tarantino, who would later write his bloody cult classic with Jackson in mind. 

    It was that counterculture hit that won him an Oscar nomination and still brings him a constant new crop of fans.

    “It’s the kind of movie that every year, I gain 3, 4 million new fans because kids get old enough to see it for the first time,” he said. “They think it’s the coolest thing they’ve ever fuckin’ seen in their lives.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Josh Brolin Shares Drunk Photo To Celebrate Sobriety

    Josh Brolin Shares Drunk Photo To Celebrate Sobriety

    The Avengers actor described a harrowing, alcohol-fueled night on Instagram to celebrate a major sober milestone.

    Actor Josh Brolin, who has starred in movies ranging from The Goonies to No Country for Old Men to Deadpool 2, took to Instagram this week to celebrate five years of sobriety in an unusual way: sharing a photo from a drunk night out. 

    Brolin posted the photo, along with a lengthy caption. 

    “Drunk: when you think you’re having a rip roaring time and the next morning you wake up and your brain has broken into a frenzied beehive and your body is shattered shards of sharp glass desperately searching for what fits where and your spirit is being eaten by worms with great white bloodied teeth and your heart has shriveled into a black prune churning your intestines to the point where dysentery feels attractive,” he wrote.

    Brolin continued, “And you can’t remember anything you did so you roll out of bed over last night’s urine and you dial your best friend’s phone number because you recall him lifting you over his head, your whole self, before you hit and broke through the drywall and, you think, a large aquarium and the phone on the other end rings and he picks it up, that clambering for a phone, the clumsiness of a hardline, and you say: ‘What did I do last night?!’ and he answers, after a great pause: ‘…Dude…’. #5years.” 

    Brolin quit drinking and smoking five years ago. He had just had enough, he told The New York Times last summer. 

    “There’s something that happens to me when I drink that all moral code disappears,” he said. “So it’s like if I were to take that drink . . . after about halfway through, I would start thinking about jumping out that window . . . not to kill myself, but just because there must be somebody down there to catch me, and I wonder if I can pull it off or if I could land on that van. It just seemed like fun.”

    Despite the fact that he is more in control now that he is sober, he still tries to channel some of the spontaneity and levity that drinking brought to him, he said. 

    “I want to live more drunk. I want to live drunkenly. I just don’t want to take the drink.”

    Brolin told the Times that in recovery he’s also trying to overcome the codependent patterns in his love life. His past relationships, he said, had an unhealthy focus, which he described: “I’m going to find out all your needs and all your insecurities, and all that, and then I’m going to play on that. Like, you need a daddy? I’ll be your daddy. I’ll be your hero.”

    His dynamic with his current wife, Kathryn, is much healthier, he said. 

    “She doesn’t need me. She never needed me.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Devon Sawa Is 12 Years Sober

    Devon Sawa Is 12 Years Sober

    Actor Devon Sawa took to Twitter to celebrate his sober milestone.

    Only someone in recovery would know exactly how many days are in 12 years: 4,380. That’s how many days Final Destination actor Devon Sawa has been in recovery, an accomplishment that he celebrated on Twitter this week. 

    “12 years sober, officially,” Sawa wrote. “This is one tweet in which I declare I’m fishing for compliments. I earned every 4,380 days and it wasn’t easy.”

    Sawa became famous in the 1990s for staring in movies including Casper and Final Destination. However, at just 25 he decided to say goodbye to Hollywood. It was during that hiatus that he got sober. 

    “At 25 years old I stepped away from the business for five years and most of the time didn’t know whether I was going to come back or not,” Sawa told US Weekly last year. “I had done a series of four or five indie movies that I wasn’t necessarily proud of. Some were horror movies. After Final Destination everybody wanted me to do horror movies and some weren’t as good as others. I was just burnt out.”

    He only returned by chance, he said. 

    “I was brought back into the business by accident. Somebody at my agency didn’t get the memo that I quit and sent me an audition and I put myself on tape and that was it,” Sawa said. “I didn’t get it… But I did really well and the casting director wanted to meet me and I did. I thought, ‘You know what, this is what I love. This is what I really want to do.’ So I don’t know why I stepped away in the first place.”

    More recently, Sawa stared alongside Paula Patton in Somewhere Between, an ABC drama. He said that he is glad that a fluke brought him back into the acting business. 

    “I think if somebody hadn’t had sent me that audition I think that I may still be out of it. I was happy what I was doing but I’m happier now. I’m happier back doing what I really love.”

    When asked his on-set must-haves, Sawa insists that he’s simple. 

    “I’m not that guy,” he said. “I just need a place that’s a little quiet before I go in and other than that I don’t have anything that I need. I’m not the Skittles with no red in a bowl or sparkling water kind of guy.”

    As for sobriety, Sawa said this week that his years of commitment have paid off. 

    “To anyone else on this journey just starting out, it’s worth it. My life today has ups and downs, but overall, I’m a lucky man.”

    View the original article at thefix.com