This post deals heavily with topics of alcohol and drug addiction, and suicide ideation.
1. Tom Holland challenged himself to do "dry January" in 2022, after a "boozy December," which ultimately made him reevaluate his relationship with alcohol. "All I could think about was having a drink. … I was waking up thinking about it," he said. "It really scared me."
2. Emma Chamberlain opened up about her "very severe" nicotine addiction after she started vaping to cope with her instant fame. "I have had a constant stream of nicotine in my system for the past five years. Not a day has gone by…where I haven't consumed nicotine in some form," she said.
3. Liam Payne recently shared that he's six months sober after spending 100 days in a rehabilitation facility. "I just needed to take a little bit of time out for myself, actually, because I kind of became somebody who I didn’t really recognize anymore,” he said. “And I’m sure you guys didn’t either.”
4. Demi Lovato has been extremely open about her struggle with addiction following her nearly fatal overdose in 2018. She shared that she's "clean and sober" after going through treatment in 2021.
5. Matthew Perry shared that his relationship with alcohol began when he was just a teenager. "I had never been happier than in that moment," he said about the first time he drank. He also said that his substance abuse began after he hurt his neck in a jet-ski accident while filming and an on-set doctor gave him Vicodin to relieve his pain. "As the pill kicked in, something clicked in me," he said. "And it’s been that click that I’ve been chasing the rest of my life."
6. Drew Barrymore shared that she'd started drinking alcohol when she was just 9 years old and started doing drugs shortly after. By the time she was 13, she was entered into a rehabilitation facility. She's since opened up about her struggles with alcohol and has been sober for about four years now.
7. Selma Blair shared that she struggled with alcohol addiction for years and revealed that the first time she got "very drunk" was at a Passover celebration when she was only 7 years old. "When I drank, I didn’t know what drama I would find, but I knew it was drama that I would feel," she said. "I needed it. I looked forward to it. It was always my way out."
8. Tom Felton turned to alcohol during the years after the Harry Potter franchise ended and shared that his team held a “painful and humiliating” intervention and suggested he go to rehab. Then, while he was there, he "escaped" less than 24 hours after checking in. “My lawyer, whom I’d barely ever met face to face, spoke with quiet honesty,” he said. “‘Tom,’ he said, ‘I don’t know you very well, but you seem like a nice guy. All I want to tell you is that this is the seventeenth intervention I’ve been to in my career. Eleven of them are now dead. Don’t be the twelfth.'”
9. Jodie Sweetin dealt with alcohol and drug abuse for about 15 years until she got sober in 2005. She recalled a time when she was intoxicated at a movie premiere but no one even noticed. "I was pulling off the deceit. It was hard for people to believe I was doing that much drugs," she said. "I look at photos from that event, and I didn't even look strung out!"
10. Jamie Lee Curtis opened up about her addiction to Vicodin that she'd kept a secret for "over 10 years." She remembered the time a friend watched her take five pills along with a sip of wine and said, “I heard this voice: ‘You know, Jamie, I see you. I see you with your little pills, and you think you’re so fabulous and so great, but the truth is you’re dead. You’re a dead woman.’”
11. Cara Delevingne recalled that her first experience misusing alcohol was during a family wedding when she was just 7 years old. In her journey to recovery, she realized that it's not always linear and she's really had to work for it. She said, “This process obviously has its ups and downs, but I’ve started realizing so much. People want my story to be this after-school special where I just say, ‘Oh look, I was an addict, and now I’m sober and that’s it.’ And it’s not as simple as that. It doesn’t happen overnight. ... Of course I want things to be instant — I think this generation especially, we want things to happen quickly — but I’ve had to dig deeper.”
12. Jamie Campbell Bower shared that he was in an "active addiction" 13 and a half years ago. "Hurting myself and those around me who I loved the most. It got so bad that eventually I ended up in a hospital for mental health," he wrote in a tweet published last summer. "I am now 7 1/2 years clean and sober. I have made many mistakes in my life... But each day is a chance to start again. Atone for mistakes and grow."
13. Lucy Hale revealed that she'd been working on getting sober since she was 22 years old. She's now 33, and as of February of this year, she had "a little over a year of sobriety." "It took time. It took patience with myself," she said. "I just held on to that belief that the real Lucy came out when she was drinking. It also quieted my mind. ... My brain just doesn't shut off and it's exhausting. I was a textbook binge drinker, blackout, wouldn't remember what I did or what I said, which is scary.”
14. Daniel Radcliffe began abusing alcohol around the time when the Harry Potter franchise came to an end, and he opened up about being sober since 2010. He said, "I definitely think a lot of the drinking that happened towards the end of Potter, and for a little bit after it finished, it was panic and not knowing what to do next, and not being comfortable enough in who I was to remain sober."
15. Zac Efron quit drinking back in 2013, after a brief time in a rehab center. He said his sobriety helped him find "structure" in his life after realizing that his immense fame was a trigger. "That [journey] led me to a balance of opposites: You get out of life what you put in."
16. Miley Cyrus shared that she was "sober sober" back in 2020 and said that her family history of addiction is what made her reevaluate her relationship with alcohol and substances. "I did a lot of family history, which has a lot of addiction and mental health challenges. So just going through that and asking, 'Why am I the way that I am?' By understanding the past, we understand the present and the future much more clearly," she said.
17. Naomi Campbell shared that she struggled with addiction during the early '00s. "The time between 1998 and 2005 was especially bad," she said. "During that time, I avoided looking in the mirror, because I didn't like the person who was looking back at me. To be honest, there were times I thought I wouldn't survive. I used to have a lot of problems. Amongst others, I drank too much, so I joined Alcoholics Anonymous to get and stay sober."
18. Nicki Minaj shared that she is "sober & loving life" in a series of tweets. She added, "I used to [be] happy when I was high. Now I'm happy when I'm sober. No judgement to anyone. Be gentle with yourself. 🎀."
19. Finally, Chrissy Teigen shared that she was alcohol-free last year and said, "I miss feeling loopy and carefree sometimes, but to be honest toward the end, it didn’t give that fun feeling anymore anyhow. I drank to end crazy anxiety that later mostly went away when I — get this — quit drinking!"
