From Whiskey to Wisdom: 7 Celebs Who Ditched Alcohol for Good or at Least Tried to

Hollywood celebs seem to have charmed lives: they have access to the best stylists, makeup artists, fitness trainers, beauticians and psychologists. The problem is they also have easy access to booze and drugs and for some of them that becomes a real problem.

Adele

The same pain that drove Adele to write her beautiful songs, which made her a superstar, also drove her into depression, which she tried to drown in booze. The singer once confessed in an interview that this one time she got so wasted before a show she forgot the lyrics to her own songs. She then realised it was time to stop.

Daniel Radcliffe

When the Harry Potter star turned 18, he started hitting the bottle hard. He went through a phase when he drank every day, showing up drunk on set, only to go back home and drink even more. In 2010, it dawned on him he was self-destructing so he quit drinking.

Later Daniel admitted that he mostly drank because he was scared that once the Harry Potter franchise was over he would just be forgotten about, his name only ever being dusted off for one of those Where Are Those Kid Actors Now lists.

Johnny Depp

In 2015, work on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales was brought to a standstill after the movie’s main star, Johnny Depp fell off the wagon, got wasted with some friends and punched a hole through a glass door while arguing with his wife over the phone. Depp had previously undergone treatment for alcoholism but it didn’t take…

Matthew Perry

Even though Mathew’s alcoholism was undoubtedly made worse by the crazy fame that Friends brought him, he says he was an alcoholic even before the show started. According to him, he never turned up for work drunk but he always turned up with a terrible hangover. Perry says everybody knew about his drinking problem, despite his efforts to hide it as best as he could. Ironically, his fame also helped him bring his problem under control as bartenders would at one point simply refuse to pour drinks for him, saying they had just read he wasn’t supposed to drink.

Robert Downey, Jr.

Today Robert Downey Jr. is one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood and an MCU darling, but he went through a dark period in his life when nobody would touch him with a ten-foot pole on account of his drinking problem. At one point it got so out of control(in 1996) that a neighbour called the cops on him after finding the actor passed out drunk in her 11-year-old daughter’s bedroom.

Zac Efron

Zac’s been to rehab twice to treat his cocaine addiction. He eventually managed to kick cocaine but he became an alcoholic in the process. Rumour has it he still tends to hit the bottle pretty hard from time to time.

Ben Affleck

Ben comes from a long line of alcoholics and he’s carried on the tradition. He struggled with it on his own with little success until finally in 2001 he checked himself into a rehab clinic. The treatment helped and Ben remained on the wagon for the next ten years. Since then he’s had an on-again-off-again relationship with booze, going back to rehab several times.