Alcoholism is an addiction that affects not only physical health but also mental state, leading to the collapse of social and family life. When alcoholism becomes a big problem, this is noticeable in the way people stop dealing with their work and other duties, because alcohol begins to dominate in all aspects of their lives, including relationships with others.
Alcoholism is a harmful habit, causing harm to any addict, but when it comes to celebrities, the problem goes to a completely different level, since their life is under close attention. Alcoholism can ruin their career and seriously damage their personal and social life. Here is a list of 26 stars whose life and career suffered from alcoholism and made them look for a facility to help men fight addiction.
Stephen King
This famous horror writer, who wrote such bestsellers as It, Carrie, The Shawshank Redemption, Misery, and many others, has struggled with alcohol and drug addiction for years. When his family finally decided to intervene in 1987, King agreed that he needed to change. Since then, he remained a teetotaler.
Stephen King often endowed his main characters with the same male addiction with which he fought. He also talked a lot and eagerly about his constant attempts to regain control of his addiction. He claimed that alcohol and drugs helped him get away from the depressive reality in which he lived.
Today, King is no longer so proud of his past habits, but he speaks openly about them because he was able to put his life in order and cope with them all.
Ian McGregor
This actor also had a problem with alcohol abuse, and although it seemed that alcohol had no effect on his career, it harmed his personal life. McGregor recalls his role in the 1996 film Trainspotting, believing that at that time, he looked like a “tipsy maniac.” He remembers that he lost control of the drink, but this went unnoticed since no producer had ever tried to draw his attention to this problem or find a men’s rehabilitation for him.
Soon, McGregor turned from a happy drunkard into a miserable and self-ashamed man who did not want to lose everything he achieved with such difficulty, so he decided to stop drinking and put his behavior in order.
Perhaps the moment he came to his senses was a meeting with Iggy Pop: then he was so drunk that he was completely disgraced. Now he recalls this incident as the most shameful moment in his life.
Ben Affleck
This stunning actor from the movie Armageddon ended up in alcohol rehab for men in 2001. Before that, Ben Affleck starred in the movie Pearl Harbor, showing that addiction had little effect on his career. His career suffered when he starred in the movie Gigli, which was poorly received by the audience and received disappointing reviews from film critics, but his alcoholism had nothing to do with it.
He successfully won the fight against addiction and remained sober until the Sundance Film Festival in 2011, where he was noticed to be drinking. However, he was able to cope with addiction and achieve such success in his career, which few actors sought. He even received an Oscar in 2013 in the “Best Film of the Year” nomination for the film Argo.
Michael J. Fox
We all know Michael J. Fox from the Back to the Future movies. The actor suffered from alcoholism until he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. The diagnosis made him change his life; he focused on promoting research on Parkinson’s disease to help current and future patients.
Fox put up with a terrible diagnosis and, thanks to the support of his family, successfully quit drinking. Since then, he founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) to fund further research on Parkinson’s disease. He also continued his career on various television shows, including The Michael J. Fox Show and The Boston Lawyers.
Michael is an excellent example for all people, showing that illness does not determine who you are and what you can do. The disease did not stop his desire for a dream and did not prevent him from living to the fullest.
Mickey Mantle
Mantle is the most famous player on the Yankee team in the history of its existence. His addiction was so strong that he was drunk at every game, or at least always tipsy.
The fact that he played so well while drunk shows the depth of his talent. Imagine how he would play sober? There would be no one who could equal him.
Mantle played in the Yankee team for 18 years, and almost all the time, he was alcohol addicted. Needless to say, his death came as a result of alcohol abuse. He died in 1995, although a few months before his death, he underwent a liver transplant.
Regardless of alcoholism, Mickey Mantle is still considered the best baseball player.
Daniel Radcliffe
Daniel Radcliffe, who is known as the Harry Potter wizard boy in the most popular teen movies, was faced with the pressure of fame at the age of 11, which continued to build up in his teenage and youthful years.
Fame at such a young age and the diagnosis of “neurological coordination disorder,” which made it difficult to complete common tasks, became factors that triggered Radcliffe’s mechanism of alcohol addiction. Sometimes he felt so bad that he could not even tie the shoelaces on his boots, and according to some rumors, the shooting of the Harry Potter movies sometimes had to be stopped due to his inability to concentrate.
Hearing his diagnosis, Radcliffe began to drink alcohol, first drinking periodically at parties, and then becoming addicted. Sometimes he even came drunk on set.
In 2010, Daniel Radcliffe realized that his alcoholism had become a problem, and decided to end it. Since then, he has had breakdowns, however, we hope that the actor will finally be able to get the better of this addiction.
Alec Baldwin
According to 30 Rock magazine, since Alec’s 20th anniversary, the actor has spent almost seven years under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Obviously, he felt a void inside and tried to fill it with various substances.
His addiction got out of hand when he started drinking every night, falling asleep only at lunch. Once he drank Chardonnay from a plastic cup while driving, at that moment, it occurred to him that such behavior could not be normal anymore – it had to be corrected. Another factor that led him to the eradication of his bad habits was the plaintive look of the other people passed by Alec. Baldwin did not want to be the one who caused such pity, so he joined the society of alcoholics anonymous at one of the men-only rehab programs at the age of 27 years and has not drunk since.