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  • Anne Hathaway Vows To Stop Drinking Until Son Is Older

    Anne Hathaway Vows To Stop Drinking Until Son Is Older

    Hathaway says before she stopped drinking she had been touring rum bars on the island Mauritius, an experience she doesn’t remember.

    Anne Hathaway hasn’t had a drink since October—and she plans to keep it that way for the next 18 years.

    According to USA Today, the actress made the announcement on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Tuesday (Jan. 22). Hathaway says she plans to stay sober until her 2-year-old son, Jonathan, is grown.  

    While Hathaway has never been in the spotlight for excessive drinking or partying, she says she still feels that stopping is the right decision when it comes to the effect it could have on the way she parents. 

    “I’m going to stop drinking while my son is in my house just because I don’t totally love the way I do it and he’s getting to an age where he really does need me all the time in the mornings,” Hathaway told Ellen. “I did one school run one day where I dropped him off at school. I wasn’t driving, but I was hungover and that was enough for me. I didn’t love that one.” 

    Hathaway says before she stopped drinking, she had been traveling on the island Mauritius, with her Serenity co-star Matthew McConaughey and his wife, Camila Alves. The friends had been touring rum bars and Hathaway tells Ellen that she doesn’t recall much of it.

    “Wow, and how was that?” Ellen asked, referring to the travels. 

    “I don’t remember,” Hathaway replied. “I have no idea.” 

    Hathaway added that while she enjoys their company, she simply couldn’t keep up with the drinking.

    “They’re both cool, and I just can’t drink as much as them,” she said. “We drank the night away, and then I had to go to a meeting with Steven Knight, our director, the next day, and I was just kinda—have you guys ever had to do a meeting hungover? I was just kinda stumbling in with one eye open and I was trying to convince him about certain things about my character.”

    Hathaway says at the end of the meeting, she told Knight she was hungover. 

    “He just goes, ‘Oh, really? I couldn’t tell,’” she told Ellen. “And then two days later we had another meeting and I showed up and he said ‘Oh, now I can.’” 

    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

  • Idris Elba's Daughter Details Helping Mom With Mental Health

    Idris Elba's Daughter Details Helping Mom With Mental Health

    Isan Elba’s mother Hanne is living with bipolar disorder and depression. 

    British actor Idris Elba has had a remarkable acting career, from playing Heimdall in Thor and Roland in The Dark Tower, to being hailed People’s Sexiest Man Alive.

    Elba’s daughter, 17-year-old Isan, is also successful in her own right as an ambassador to the Golden Globes, and she’s using her position to raise awareness about mental health.

    As People explains, Isan’s ambassador role is a personal one because her mother, Hanne “Kim” Norgaard, suffers from mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety.

    At a luncheon in Beverly Hills, Isan explained, “It was only about two years ago that my mom opened up to me. I’m not going to lie, it’s a struggle every day. It’s a learning lesson for me, but it’s hard. Mental health is something that’s hard to deal with. We just sat down and talked about it, and I think that was better for her, talking about it and talking about it with someone who means the most in her life and just getting that out.”

    Once Isan learned what her mother was going through, “It was like, ‘Whoa.’ . . . It was definitely a learning curve. I’m so much closer to my mom now because I know what she’s going through.”

    At the luncheon, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association made the announcement that $50,000 would be donated to the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation in Isan’s name. As the Henson Foundation website states, their goal “is to eradicate the stigma around mental health issues in the African-American community.”

    “Mental health, specifically among African Americans and my peers in particular, is something I really want to be more vocal about,” Isan said. “There’s this perceived stigma and I’ve seen friends struggle. We need to empower young people to not be afraid to ask for help.”

    Isan told Variety, “Being able to have this platform, and talk about something that I care about that hits home, was really like, ‘Yes, I have to do this.’ It’s something I care about and like I said, using your influence to talk about something you care about or an issue that needs to be fixed, I thought it was the perfect opportunity.”

    Isan also explained that after the luncheon, “[She] will still continue to advocate for mental health. And in the African-American community and among teenagers, because I’m both, and it’s such taboo in both communities.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Glee" Star Jesse Luken Arrested For DUI

    "Glee" Star Jesse Luken Arrested For DUI

    The 35-year-old actor was released on $5,000 bail.

    Jesse Luken, who played Bobby “Boom Boom” Surette on the TV musical Glee, allegedly crashed his car after driving drunk last month. 

    Police in Glendale, California. responded to a call about a single-car crash and found Luken in the driver’s seat of his Toyota, which was driven up onto the curb. The front tire was damaged and the airbag was deployed, according to TMZ.

    Citing law enforcement sources, TMZ reported that Luken smelled strongly of alcohol, which prompted police to administer a field sobriety test. Luken failed that, and was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. 

    Fox News reported that the actor, 35, posted a $5,000 bail and was released from jail. 

    Glee, which aired on Fox, was a hit between 2009 and 2015. However, since the show ended the former cast has had a series of legal entanglements and tragedies. In 2013, the show’s star, Cory Monteith, died of an overdose of heroin and alcohol shortly after completing a 30-day stint in rehab.

    Prior to his death at age 31, Monteith had been open about his addiction, saying that he had been struggling with substance abuse since he was 13. 

    “I don’t want kids to think it’s OK to drop out of school and get high, and they’ll be famous actors, too,” he said. “But for those people who might give up: Get real about what you want and go after it. If I can, anyone can.”

    In 2016, Glee actress Naya Rivera wrote in her memoir about Monteith’s death, and how it affected the cast. 

    “I doubt I’m alone in feeling a lot of regret about his death,” she wrote, according to E! News. “Since he died, a lot of us have spent time wondering and talking about what would have happened if someone had stepped in or confronted him about what was going on. Or what if he’d been trying to talk to someone about what was going on and just thought no one cared?”

    Glee’s director, Adam Shankman, sought treatment for substance abuse disorder in 2013. 

    “His friends and family support him and wish him well on his journey to recovery,” a representative said at the time.  

    In January of 2018, another Glee actor, Mark Salling, was found dead by suicide. Salling pleaded guilty in October 2017 to possession of child pornography. He was facing four to seven years in prison, as well as fines and registration as a sex offender.  

    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

  • Dennis Quaid: "I Saw Myself Being Dead" During A Cocaine Binge

    Dennis Quaid: "I Saw Myself Being Dead" During A Cocaine Binge

    Dennis Quaid said in a recent interview that in the midst of his cocaine addiction he was doing two grams a day.

    Actor Dennis Quaid, who has said that he did cocaine almost daily during the ’80s, told The Sunday Times this week that during one binge he saw himself being dead, a frightening experience that led the star to put himself in rehab. 

    “I was doing about two grams a day,” Quaid said, according to People. “I was lucky. I had one of those white-light experiences where I saw myself being dead and losing everything I had worked for my whole life.”

    That led Quaid to check into rehab, which he completed in 1990, before marrying actress Meg Ryan in 1991. The pair were married until 2001. 

    Quaid used to use cocaine and alcohol together. 

    “I would do coke and I would use alcohol to come down,” he said. “I liked coke. I liked it to go out.”

    Quaid said that when he stopped using he still experienced cravings for the drug, saying he “missed it for quite a while.” Earlier this year, Quaid said that getting sober was a challenge. 

    “A lot of it had to be learned,” he said during an interview with People magazine in March “And part of it is just where I come from, I guess. Sometimes your hopes get ahead of your dreams, so you can get disappointed that way. Adversity is the thing that teaches you how to handle that.”

    However, these days Quaid, 64, gets his high from working out regularly. 

    “I’ve always had a high metabolism. I get a high from exercising. I really do,” he said. “I think it does what all those antidepressants are supposed to do.”

    He has also taken up meditation, “which puts me into the present moment because that’s all there really is,” he said. “Because either you worry about the future or there’s something about the past, but if you’re in the present moment, then there’s no problem at all. I’m sitting here. I’m just fine.”

    Quaid said earlier this year that despite his past drug use and three public divorces, he’s content now. 

    “I’m most happy when I just kind of get out of my own way and let things happen,” he said. “I’m not the guy that’s living an enlightened experience all the time; I blow my top many times. In life we’re either forced, kicking and screaming, into change—or we learn to cope with it. But I really am at peace now.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ben Foster’s “Leave No Trace” Tackles PTSD, Mental Health

    Ben Foster’s “Leave No Trace” Tackles PTSD, Mental Health

    In the critically-acclaimed movie, Foster plays a veteran coping with post-traumatic stress disorder.

    Ben Foster, star of X-Men: The Last Stand and 3:10 to Yuma, has received rave reviews and early Oscar buzz this year for his role Leave No Trace where he plays a veteran dealing with PTSD.

    Foster hopes the film will help reduce the public stigma around mental health, and as the actor told People, “Some wounds and illnesses are invisible to the naked eye. By sharing stories about our own unique experiences, we can allow a safe identification and hopefully a conversation. Any time we look past a bias or perceived stigma, for ourselves or others, we strengthen our own humanity. Practicing empathy is the first mighty step towards healing.”

    When Leave No Trace was coming together, Foster told Indie Wire that “the unseen scars of war” and how veterans cope with them “are things that have touched my life by having friends in the military, and I felt like I could ask these questions in an emotional way that I haven’t before, so that was exciting … Further than that, trauma is trauma, and war doesn’t get to own PTSD. Understanding that if you live long enough on this planet and you make it to a certain age we’re gonna experience things that go unresolved, leave a mark. We need to find ways to cope.”

    To prepare for the role, Foster consulted with Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen, a renowned psychologist who helps veterans. (In 2012, Van Dahlen made Time’s Most Influential People List.) Foster previously worked with Dr. Van Dahlen when he starred in the Chris Stapleton video for “Fire Away,” which also raised awareness for mental health awareness.

    Foster called Van Dahlen “one of [the] most beautiful compassionate humans I’ve had the good fortune of meeting. She helped guide us towards a more authentic expression of how depression manifests itself and affects loved ones, while at the same time suggesting hope and ways to connect.”

    Van Dahlen created a foundation for vets called Give an Hour, where therapists donate an hour of their time for free to help veterans cope after serving. (Since forming in 2005, the organization, through the work of 7,000 therapists, has reportedly given 250,000 hours of free help to vets.)

    With Leave No Trace, Van Dahlen feels it’s important “to tell authentic, accurate stories. We’ve had way too many in our history of sensationalized stories so, sadly, people think all veterans are broken, they all have post-traumatic stress. And that’s not true. ‘Leave No Trace’ is such a beautiful and compelling film … Ben really is such a student and was meticulous about getting it right and being authentic.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Eliza Dushku Celebrates 10 Years of Sobriety

    Eliza Dushku Celebrates 10 Years of Sobriety

    “Buffy” actress Eliza Dushku shared her sobriety milestone on Instagram.

    Eliza Dushku, best known for her roles in the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the film Bring It On, is celebrating 10 years sober on Instagram.

    Posting an image of a large Roman numeral X, the 37-year-old actress bubbled with positivity and gratefulness in the caption. “#grateful #sober #X yrs today. holy sh*t. #aa #twelvesteps #willingness a #sponsor #fellowship #service & asking for help #odaat saved my life,” Dushku wrote on the post. “If you’re struggling w #alcohol &/or #drug #addiction, I promise, you don’t have to live that way anymore.”

    She topped off the post with a little encouragement and advice for any of her fans who might be facing the same problems. “Reach out, your life is waiting for you: www.aa.org & www.na.org,” she wrote. Possibly making a reference to her Buffy character’s name, she added “Have #FAITH.”

    Dushku hasn’t always been so public about her recovery. For years, she kept her struggles with substance abuse under wraps, only speaking directly about it for the first time in March of last year at the Youth Summit on Opioid Awareness in New Hampshire.

    “Something a lot of people don’t know about me is that I am an alcoholic and I was a drug addict for a lot of years,” Dushku told a crowd of 8,000 middle and high school students. “You hear people say ‘I am that’ because I am that, and I’m always going to be that, but the difference between me and an alcoholic or drug addict that still drinks and does drugs is that I am sober.”

    Dushku said that she began using drugs when she was just 14 years old.

    “I loved the first time I took a drug because I loved how it made me feel. I loved the way it made me not feel, and I didn’t have to feel,” she recounted to the audience. “It was fun and I loved it, until it wasn’t.”

    Her substance abuse problems got worse, spiraling down until one day her brother stopped allowing Dushku to visit her niece while under the influence.

    “I remember my brother telling me he didn’t want me to be around my niece because he didn’t trust me,” Dushku said. “I’m a really good auntie today. But you know what? He was right. I’m a good person, but when I did drugs and I drank, I didn’t make good decisions. … All it takes is one bad decision. You don’t have to live like that.”

    These days, Dushku is doing better, celebrating 10 years sober as well as getting married in August.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Michael Douglas Discusses Addiction With Marc Maron

    Michael Douglas Discusses Addiction With Marc Maron

    “I got sober. I was in rehab in 1991. Probably more alcohol but drugs were a part of it.” 

    Academy Award-winning actor Michael Douglas is no stranger to substance use disorder. The Basic Instinct star has been to rehab, his son has battled heroin addiction and he also lost a brother to an overdose.

    Yet in a recent interview on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Douglas admitted that he’s currently “not really” sober.

    “I got sober. I was in rehab in 1991. Probably more alcohol but drugs were a part of it,” he explained, according to Radar Online.

    The 74-year-old actor says that today, “Everything is a question of moderation and all of that but just not the way you wake up in the morning anymore (wanting more). You have to be careful of the fact that… I have had addiction issues in my family. I have lost a brother, Eric.” (In an interview with the Daily Mail, Douglas said, “I drink in moderation, I don’t get drunk, I monitor myself pretty well.”)

    Douglas then spoke about his son Cameron, who was addicted to heroin and served time in prison for selling meth and heroin possession in 2009. While he was incarcerated, four-and-a-half years were added to his sentence when he was caught smuggling in drugs for his “personal use.”

    “He is fine,” Douglas says. “He is doing really well. But I think you learn about genetics amongst other things that you have to be careful.”

    When Douglas went to rehab in the early ’90s, he also reportedly went in for sex addiction.

    In 2015, he told the Daily Mail, “I had an alcohol issue—I’d just lost my stepfather and it was a good rehab session; it certainly helped me find out a couple of things. Basic Instinct had just come out and I don’t remember who the clever editor was in London, but they came up with ‘sex addiction.’ It became a new disease. No one had heard of that up until then, but it’s stuck with me ever since. And it still pops up now and again.”

    With his son Cameron’s incarceration, Douglas realized that he followed the same path as an absentee father, much like when his own father Kirk wasn’t there for him when he was growing up.

    He told Today in 2010, “I’ve taken blame about being a bad father—if being a bad father is working your butt off trying to create a career at one time.” Douglas said that Cameron’s mother, Diandra Luker, had alcoholism in her family as well.

    “Then you finally end up with who you choose to hang out with,” Douglas continued. “In Cameron’s position, he took a lot of lowlifes and he was a very attractive target to hang out with, and I don’t think that helped, either… I’m willing to take the hit.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Norman Reedus Fundraises For Children’s Medical Cannabis Treatments

    Norman Reedus Fundraises For Children’s Medical Cannabis Treatments

    The Walking Dead star is taking aim at cancer by raffling off signed memorabilia.

    Walking Dead star Norman Reedus, known for wielding a crossbow against hordes of the undead on television, is setting his sights on childhood cancer. In support of Saving Sophie, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting children and adults who need medical cannabis treatments, Reedus is raffling off Walking Dead merchandise that he’s autographed.

    The move is something of a rerun as Reedus raised funds for CannaKids last year. For this fundraiser, participants can pay a minimum of $5 for a raffle ticket. The money will go to Saving Sophie, which will use the proceeds to expand the organization’s medical cannabis research program to a yet-to-be-determined university in southern California.

    Currently, Saving Sophie has four children and four adults participating in their research who are using medical cannabis treatments alongside conventional cancer treatments like chemotherapy or radiation.

    Saving Sophie was created by the parents of Sophie Ryan, whose story is featured in the documentary Weed the People. The documentary explored the lives of families who have turned to medical cannabis to treat their child’s cancer.

    While the stigma surrounding providing children with marijuana-based treatments has not dissipated, some research has shown that such treatments have been effective in combating glioblastoma, a brain cancer. Sophie Ryan’s own glioma tumor shrunk by 90% with a combo treatment of chemotherapy and cannabis oils.

    Despite these early indicators of effectiveness, critics and detractors stand in the way simply on the virtue of the medicine being marijuana-based. Some debates have arisen over whether pediatric patients should be allowed to bring their medical cannabis to school and use it there. The stigma also forces some parents to turn to shady pathways to get their hands on the potentially life-saving medicine for their children.

    Improving the public perception of medical cannabis may be one of the most important contributions Reedus is making with his new campaign. Advocates believe such a celebrity endorsement aimed at saving the lives of children is likely to get the attention and support of the general public.

    Reedus isn’t the only cast member of the Walking Dead franchise who has done their part to fight negative stigma in health treatment. Kevin Zegers spoke openly about his sobriety on Entertainment Tonight Canada.

    “The reason I go to an AA meeting on my birthday—the reason we’re urged to do that—is not for you, but you do it for others, to indicate it’s possible, which in the depths of addiction doesn’t feel possible,” he explained in the interview. “I think it’s our duty, even with, you know, a very small amount of fame, which I sometimes have, to go, ‘Oh s***, that guy suffers, too.’”

    View the original article at thefix.com