One Saturday in 1984, I walked into my first AA meeting. I went regularly for six years and only stopped when I came to realize my underlying problem was not genuine alcoholism, but depression.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I had what AA calls 'a convincer' - which made me realize that I couldn't do it any more. I went out drinking for about 70 hours here in London. At the end I knew I was done.
I keep telling people: Don't make me the poster boy for AA because I don't know a lot about sobriety, but I do know a lot about drinking.
The first year I was sober was probably the worst year of my life. My immune system was screwed. I completely isolated myself. I was weak all the time. I didn't know who I was.
It wasn't being an alcoholic - it was going wild. It happened when I got famous. It was like having my teens in my early thirties: blotting out your life, not having to think about anything.
I got sober for good on December 7, 2008.
After graduation in June of 1984, I moved to Manhattan. My first stop was a psychiatrist, who in less than our first fifty-minute session again diagnosed me with depression.
Getting sober was one of the three pivotal events in my life, along with becoming an actor and having a child. Of the three, finding my sobriety was the hardest thing.
I remember being very young and going to AA meetings with my father in Brooklyn. I thought it was fun because they served hot chocolate and cookies.
I went to one AA meeting and I got asked for an autograph.
I was an alcoholic, for sure. It became a problem steadily over the course of six years.