- Some celebrities are open about their sobriety.
- Josh Brolin recently celebrated five years of sobriety and Amanda Bynes has been clean for nearly four years.
- Other celebrities, like Blake Lively, have chosen to abstain from drinking.
Not everyone in Hollywood drinks.
For some celebrities, sobriety comes after overcoming addiction. Josh Brolin recently celebrated 5 years of sobriety, and Demi Lovato is open about her struggles. Other celebrities, like Jennifer Hudson, just choose to abstain from drinking.
Here are 41 celebrities who have openly spoken about sobriety.
Eminem celebrated 10 years of sobriety.
Eminem, real name Marshall Mathers, almost died from an accidental overdose of the drug methadone in 2007. He later entered rehab, and he celebrated 10 years of sobriety in April 2018.
Robert Downey Jr. had a public battle with addiction.
Robert Downey Jr. was arrested multiple times on drug-related charges over the span of a few years in the late 90s. He later spent time at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison and has focused on staying sober since.
"Job one is get out of that cave," he told Vanity Fair in 2014. "A lot of people do get out but don't change. So the thing is to get out and recognize the significance of that aggressive denial of your fate, come through the crucible forged into a stronger metal."
Bradley Cooper has been sober since he was 29.
Bradley Cooper told GQ in 2013 that he got sober because he realized that "if I continued it, I was really going to sabotage my whole life."
Cooper played a musician struggling with addiction in 2018's "A Star Is Born," which he also directed. He told Variety that it was a "cathartic" experience.
"Anytime you're trying to tell the truth you need to go to places and use things that have happened to you, or you've read about or experienced," he said. "And that's all part of the beauty of turning whatever things you've gone through into a story. I find that to be very cathartic."
Rob Lowe has been sober for over 25 years.
Rob Lowe received the Spirit of Sobriety award in 2015 to celebrate 25 clean years.
"Being in recovery has given me everything of value that I have in my life," Lowe said when accepting the award. "Integrity, honesty, fearlessness, faith, a relationship with God, and most of all gratitude. It's given me a beautiful family and an amazing career. I'm under no illusions where I would be without the gift of alcoholism and the chance to recover from it."
Calvin Harris stopped drinking when he was 24.
DJ and producer Calvin Harris told the BBC that he stopped drinking because it was affecting his work.
"I wasn't an alcoholic or anything like that, but it was clearly affecting what I do," he said. "My live shows are a million times better now. If you drink, you can't even remember if it's a good show or not - and that's probably for the best, because it would have been rubbish because I'd have been drunk and not making any sense."
Kendrick Lamar abstains from drugs and drinking.
"It wasn't just about money, hos, clothes, drinking," he said in GQ. "I mean, I come from that world, but at the same time, I started to realize that there's people out there that can't really connect to that lifestyle. They're in the struggle."
Lucy Hale decided to leave alcohol behind.
Lucy Hale told Byrdie that she decided to quit drinking after spending a few years in the party scene.
"I'm just always trying to surround myself with better people and be the best version of myself possible," she said. "I know it sounds obnoxious to hear people say that, but why not?"
Daniel Radcliffe developed an alcohol addiction while filming the "Harry Potter" movies.
In a conversation with Marc Maron for his "WTF" podcast in 2015, Daniel Radcliffe opened up about his addiction.
"There was definitely a time when I was coming out of 'Potter' and I was into the real world, suddenly I was in a world where I'm not going to have that consistency anymore," he said. "I was pretty inconsolable on the last day of 'Potter.' I was really worried. I was living alone, and I think I was really freaked out ... I drank a lot, as has been recorded."
Lana Del Rey was drinking heavily as an underage teen.
In an interview with GQ UK in 2012, Lana Del Rey opened up about her struggles with alcohol and drugs as a teen.
"That's really why I got sent to boarding school aged 14 - to get sober," she said. "I was a big drinker at the time. I would drink every day. I would drink alone. ... I knew it was a problem when I liked it more than I liked doing anything else."
She eventually ended up at a rehab center for drug and alcohol addicts when she was just 18.
Ben Affleck is a recovering alcoholic.
The actor first checked into rehab in 2001 and has continued to work on his sobriety through the years. And in March of 2017, the actor took to his Facebook page to talk about going back to rehab.
"I have completed treatment for alcohol addiction; something I've dealt with in the past and will continue to confront," he wrote. "I want to live life to the fullest and be the best father I can be."
His ex Jennifer Garner took him to rehab again in August 2018.
Brad Pitt stepped away from drinking.
In an interview with GQ, the actor talked about quitting drinking.
"I mean, we have a winery. I enjoy wine very, very much, but I just ran it to the ground," he said. "I had to step away for a minute. And truthfully I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional. I was good."
Kristin Davis is a recovering alcoholic.
Kristin Davis spoke with Health magazine about her addiction in 2010.
"I'm a recovering alcoholic," she said. "I've never hid it, but I've been sober the whole time I've been famous, so it wasn't like I had to go to rehab publicly."
Keith Urban has been sober for over a decade.
Keith Urban told Rolling Stone in 2016 that he turned to drugs and drinking in the late 90s.
"I stepped up my drinking. I started doing more drugs," he said. "Yeah, man. The whole back end of the 90s were just awful."
He added: "You know, early on in my sobriety, there was a period when I wished I hadn't succumbed to drugs and everything the way I did. It sucked up so much creative time, when I should have been in the studio working. But I don't know what came from that time, other than that I'm where I am because of, or in spite of, nobody knows and never will."
Joe Manganiello struggled with addiction.
"I battled with addiction at a young age and got to the other side of that," he told Haute Living in 2015. "That's an ongoing battle. I think there's a story in there somewhere about trying to find my way through that and making it to where I am today."
In 2018, he accepted a Spirit of Sobriety award.
"Sixteen years ago…I crashed and washed ashore on the banks of sobriety," he said. "When I was growing up, when I thought of an alcoholic, I thought of some toothless old guy in a trench coat in a basement somewhere. I just never thought that would apply to me. That type of stigma kept me from getting the help that I needed when I knew I needed it."
Jada Pinkett Smith quit drinking cold turkey.
According to Contact Music, Jada Pinkett Smith realized she had a problem when she was drinking at home.
"I found myself drinking two bottles of wine on the couch, and I said, 'Jada, I think we've got a problem here,'" she said. "From that day on, I went cold turkey."
Gerard Butler has been sober for over two decades.
Gerard Butler spoke to Men's Journal in 2012 about being 15 years sober then. He said he went to rehab before he could reach full-blown pill addiction.
"Maybe a stronger person wouldn't have needed to go," he said. "When you hear the word rehab, you think, 'He's a mess, he's f---ed up.' But I'm glad I did it. I've made a s--tload of wrong decisions in my life. But I know I've made some right ones as well."
Tobey MaGuire went to Alcoholics Anonymous.
In 2003, the actor opened up to Playboy about being a recovering alcoholic.
"It's just all practical," he said. "There are no holes in the program. It's so, so simple. I come in, I ask for help. It has totally changed my life."
Sia is eight years sober.
In September 2018, the singer tweeted about being eight years sober.
"Eight years sober today," she wrote on September 11, 2018. "I love you, keep going. You can do it."
In an appearance on "The Late Late Show," the singer talked about her struggles.
"I was a singer already for like 10 or 11 years to mediocre success, and I was an alcoholic and a drug addict, and I sobered up and decided I didn't want to be an artist any more," she said. "I was starting to get a little bit famous and it was destabilizing in some ways...so I thought, 'What doesn't exist in pop music at the moment?' and it was mystery."
Russell Brand has been sober for 16 years.
Russell Brand went on "Megyn Kelly Today" to discuss his recovery in 2017. He suffered from an addiction to heroine and alcoholism.
"When I started, I took it one day at a time," he said. "Ultimately, I found that spirituality worked for me."
Ewan McGregor has been sober since 2001.
Ewan McGregor told Playboy in 2005 that he stopped drinking before it could ruin his life.
"I knew I was lucky, and somehow I knew that if I didn't stop, everything would go tits up - my career, my family, my everything," he said.
Naomi Campbell joined Alcoholics Anonymous.
According to Vogue, the model didn't know if she'd make it through the early 2000s.
"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."
She is also a member of Narcotics Anonymous.
"It doesn't matter what walk of life - addiction and alcoholism doesn't discriminate," she said at the Fortune Most Powerful Women International Summit in 2017.
Colin Farrell hit 10 years sober in 2017.
During an appearance on "The Ellen Show" in 2017, Farrell celebrated his recovery. He reportedly checked into rehab again in 2018 as a preventative measure when he began to feel urges, according to The Sun.
Tim McGraw has been sober for 10 years.
Tim McGraw quit drinking in 2008 when his family and friends began to worry about him.
"When your wife tells you it's gone too far, that's a big wake-up call," he said in Men's Health."That, and realizing you're gonna lose everything you have. Not monetarily, not career-wise, but family-wise. I drank too much. I partied too much. And did other things too much."
Jennifer Hudson has been sober her entire life.
In an interview with Chelsea Handler in 2013, Jennifer Hudson explained that she has never had a drink.
"I've never had a drink in my life. I'm sober," she said. "I've never been interested. Nobody ever believes it."
Matthew Perry struggled with addiction to alcohol and Vicodin.
"I had a big problem with alcohol and pills and I couldn't stop," he told People in 2013. "Eventually things got so bad that I couldn't hide it, and then everybody knew."
Blake Lively doesn't drink.
Blake Lively told Allure in 2012 that she doesn't drink or do drugs. Despite not drinking, she still supported husband Ryan Reynolds and his Aviation Gin.
Demi Lovato openly speaks about her struggles with maintaining her sobriety. She recently relapsed after six years.
Demi Lovato celebrated six years of sobriety at one of her concerts in March 2018.
"Six years ago, I was drinking vodka out of a Sprite bottle at nine in the morning, throwing up in the car," Lovato told the crowd at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, according to Time. "So, I took a look at my life and I said, 'Something has to change, I've got to get sober.' So, I did."
But in June 2018, she released a song called "Sober," which mentioned relapsing. She didn't clarify if it meant she had recently relapsed or if it was about her past. In July, she was hospitalized for an apparent overdose.
She wrote an emotional Instagram statement about her hospitalization.
"I have always been transparent about my journey with addiction. What I've learned is that this illness is not something that disappears or fades with time," she wrote. "It is something I must continue to overcome and have not done yet."
She continued: "I now need time to heal and focus on my sobriety and road to recovery. The love you have all shown me will never be forgotten and I look forward to the day where I can say I came out on the other side."
The singer is unafraid to talk about her struggles with addiction and her mental illness.
Tom Hardy has been sober since he was 25.
The actor sobered up in 2003 by using a 12-step program. He told Esquire it was his "first port of call."
"It was hard enough for me to say, 'I'm an alcoholic,'" he said. "But staying stopped is f---ing hard."
Kelly Osbourne celebrated one year of sobriety.
Kelly Osbourne shared an emotional post on Instagram in August 2018 marking one year of sobriety.
"This past year has been one of the hardest years of my life and I feel it's time share that with you guys," she wrote. "To cut a long story short things got really dark ... The only way I knew how to function was to self medicate and go from project to project so I never had to focus on what was really going on with me."
She said she stepped out of the public eye for a time to take care of herself and thanked her brother, parents, and friends for helping her.
"I can't believe it's been a year!" she continued. "I still don't know who the f--k I am or what the f--k I want but I can wholeheartedly confess that I'm finally at peace with myself and truly starting to understand what true happiness is. I'm sorry if I let anyone down it was just time for me to work on me! I love you guys!"
John Goodman has been sober for eight years.
Goodman struggled with alcoholism for years and even drank while filming the original "Roseanne." At one point, star Roseanne Barr confronted him about it.
While on Howard Stern's SiriusXM show in March 2018, Goodman said, "She was scared for me, but she was more confrontational. She'd already had a husband go through the process."
He added: "The last four years were pretty bad, and I was drinking at work and [Barr] was scared for me. I was ashamed of myself, but I couldn't stop."
Dax Shepard celebrated 14 years of sobriety in 2018.
In 2012, Shepard told Playboy that he struggled with an addiction to drugs and alcohol. He said that from the ages of 18 to 29 he was a "heavy smoker, heavy drinker, drug addict, terrible eater, and philanderer."
"I just loved to get f---d-up - drinking, cocaine, opiates, marijuana, diet pills, pain pills, everything," he told Playboy. "Mostly my love was Jack Daniel's and cocaine."
He said that he'd get sober for some movie roles but then get right back into his drug and alcohol habits.
Shepard's wife Kristen Bell wrote an emotional post on Instagram in September 2018 celebrating his 14th year of sobriety.
"I know how much you loved using. I know how much it got in your way. And I know, because I saw, how hard you worked to live without it," she wrote. "I will forever be in awe of your dedication, and the level of fierce moral inventory you perform on yourself, like an emotional surgery, every single night...'m so proud that you have never been ashamed of your story, but instead shared it widely, with the hope it might inspire someone else to become the best version of themselves...I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone, and I want you to know, I see you. I see how hard you work. You set an excellent example of being human. Happy 14th year sobriety birthday."
Stephen Moyer has been sober for nearly 18 years.
The "True Blood" actor stopped drinking and went into rehab after the birth of his first son.
"I got to a point in my life where I was totally out of control," he told The Telegraph in 2017. " I was shocked into doing something about it and fatherhood was definitely a big aspect of that -the catalyst that shook me. And I would never want to go back there."
He added: "People, say, 'When are you going to be able to have a drink again?' And my answer to that is, 'I've already drunk all the drinks that I was supposed to drink in one lifetime.'"
Amanda Bynes is four years sober.
In an interview with Paper Magazine in 2018, Bynes revealed she was nearly four years sober. She also opened up about her drug use and abuse, which included molly, ecstasy, cocaine, and Adderall.
"My advice to anyone who is struggling with substance abuse would be to be really careful because drugs can really take a hold of your life," she said. "Everybody is different, obviously, but for me, the mixture of marijuana and whatever other drugs and sometimes drinking really messed up my brain. It really made me a completely different person."
She continues, "There are gateway drugs and thankfully I never did heroin or meth or anything like that but certain things that you think are harmless, they may actually affect you in a more harmful way. Be really, really careful because you could lose it all and ruin your entire life like I did."
John Mayer went sober after a six-day hangover.
Following Drake's 30th birthday party, Mayer was hungover for six days. It was after that experience that he decided to stop drinking.
"I looked out the window and I went, 'OK, John, what percentage of your potential would you like to have? Because if you say you'd like 60, and you'd like to spend the other 40 having fun, that's fine," he told Complex. "'But what percentage of what is available to you would you like to make happen? There's no wrong answer. What is it?' I went, '100.'"
He's been sober now for two years.
Dennis Quaid stopped drinking while overcoming a cocaine addiction.
Quaid opened up about his cocaine addiction in an interview with The Sunday Times in 2018.
"I liked coke," he said. "I liked it to go out. I missed it for quite a while. I was doing about two grams a day."
He said he was "lucky" to get a sign that led him to rehab.
"I had one of those white-light experiences where I saw myself being dead and losing everything I had worked for my whole life, so I put myself in rehab," he said.
He stopped drinking for 10 years while kicking his drug addiction but later got back into alcohol.
"I started drinking again, because alcohol was never my problem," he said. "I never liked the feeling of being drunk. I would do coke and I would use alcohol to come down."
Charlie Sheen celebrated one year of sobriety in December 2018.
Sheen has struggled with an alcohol and drug addiction for years. He quit doing cocaine and drinking for 11 years, but he told Dr. Oz in 2016 that he relapsed following his HIV diagnosis.
"It was to suffocate the anxiety and what my life was going to become with this condition and getting so numb I didn't think about it," he said. "It was the only tool I had at the time, so I believed that would quell a lot of that angst. A lot of that fear. And it only made it worse."
The actor told Us Weekly in 2019 that his daughter helped him realize he needed to get sober.
"It was a Sunday. My daughter called and said, 'I need to get to this appointment immediately,' and I'd already had a few drinks," he said.
Sheen called a friend to drive because he couldn't.
"On the drive back, I was just like, 'Damn, man, I'm not available. I'm just not responsible, and there's no nobility in that.' It was that night, I just sat with all that."
Sheen continued: "If you can't be available for the basic necessity of being there for your children, then something really needs to shift. It was that next day that I said, 'All right. It's time. Let's give this a shot.' And then a month went by, a couple months went by, I'm [like], 'Alright. This feels good. This feels good.'"
Zac Efron went to rehab to get sober.
Back in 2013, Efron went to rehab for an alcohol addiction.
"I was drinking a lot, way too much," he told The Hollywood Reporter about a year after his stint at rehab. "It's never one specific thing. I mean, you're in your 20s, single, going through life in Hollywood, you know? Everything is thrown at you."
He joined Alcoholics Anonymous and started seeing a therapist to help him on his journey, but added that battling addictions is a "never-ending struggle."
He told Elle in 2016 that getting sober provided him with "structure" in his life.
Jamie Lee Curtis has been sober for more than 20 years.
In an interview with People in 2018, Curtis revealed that she became addicted to opioids for 10 years following minor plastic surgery in 1989.
"I was ahead of the curve of the opiate epidemic," Curtis told the magazine. "I had a 10-year run, stealing, conniving. No one knew. No one."
Her husband didn't even know until she went to her first recovery meeting in 1999.
"Getting sober remains my single greatest accomplishment," Curtis said. "Bigger than my husband, bigger than both of my children, and bigger than any work, success, failure. Anything."
Josh Brolin celebrated five years of sobriety in 2018.
Brolin entered rehab in 2013 and honored his five-year anniversary of being sober with an emotional Instagram post detailing a horrific night he was drunk.
"Drunk: when you think you're having a rip roaring time and the next morning you wake up and your brain has broken into a frenzied beehive, and your body is shattered shards of sharp glass desperately searching for what fits where and your spirit is being eaten by worms with great white bloodied teeth and your heart has shriveled into a black prune churning your intestines to the point where dysentery feels attractive," he wrote.
He continued: "And you can't remember anything you did so you roll out of bed over last night's urine and you dial your best friend's phone number because you recall him lifting you over his head, your whole self, before you hit and broke through the drywall and, you think, a large aquarium and the phone on the other end rings and he picks it up, that clambering for a phone, the clumsiness of a hardline, and you say: 'What did I do last night?!' and he answers, after a great pause: '…Dude…'. #5years."
Rob Delaney has been sober for 17 years.
Comedian Delaney posted a message on Twitter in January 2019 celebrating 17 years of sobriety.
"17 years ago I was in jail in a wheelchair," he wrote. "Today I'm not. I am profoundly grateful to the alcoholics who shines a light on the path for me and helped equip me with the skills to live life well."
Delaney lost his two-year-old son Henry in 2018 and credited his sobriety with helping him experience grief.
"Sobriety allowed me to be a reasonably good dad, husband, and worker through it all," he said. "Sobriety allows me to grieve fully, and grief is an expression of love."
Steven Tyler has been clean for nine years.
In a feature for GQ called "Creating While Clean," Tyler said he's on his "fourth run" of sobriety.
Tyler said he was scared of rehab because he thought he wouldn't be creative anymore, but it was an intervention with the band that helped him.
"And it was interesting that I was being told by a bunch of guys that were still getting f---ed up," he said. "But I'm grateful that that happened. 'Cause I would have never seen the light."
He added that if he hadn't gotten sober, he'd "be dead by now."
