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In a candid interview with podcaster and life coach Jay Shetty, Tom Holland has opened up about his relationship with alcohol, revealing that he believed he felt he was “definitely addicted”.
According to Holland, it was after indulging during holiday season that he felt like he needed to take stock of some lifestyle choices he had been making.
“I didn’t one day wake up and say, ‘I’m giving up drinking.’ I just — like many Brits — had had a very, very boozy December. Christmas time, I was on vacation, I was drinking a lot,” he explains.
“I decided to just give up for January and all I could think about was having a drink. It was all I could think about. I was waking up thinking about it, I was checking the clock…And it just really scared me.”
In the interview, Holland went on to describe how he became gradually aware of the impact alcohol was having on his health and how he had become almost socially reliant on it.
He admitted that he struggled to enjoy himself in social settings, or couldn’t have fun at work events, unless a few drinks had been had in the process. Which, for many of us, is probably a familiar feeling. How often have we rushed straight to the bar just to have the comfort of at least holding a drink at a social gathering?
After hitting the six month mark, Holland says that he realised he was the happiest and healthiest he had been in his entire life.
This isn’t the first time that Holland has spoken about his sobriety. Earlier this year, the 27-year-old Spider-Man star had told Entertainment Weekly that he had been sober for a year now. But the additional nuance lends an insight into why Holland also announced that he would be retiring from acting for the foreseeable future.
After wrapping up filming the thriller The Crowded Room, Holland confessed that he found certain scenes in the series so emotionally and mentally challenging that he would need time to recover.
An actor putting his mental health before the cash flow? Perhaps there’s hope yet for Hollywood’s younger stars.
Watch the full YouTube interview with Jay Shetty below.
