Anthony Hopkins opens up about battling alcoholism and 50 years of sobriety: ‘I should have been dead years ago’

Actor Sir Anthony Hopkins recalls the story of how he decided to give up alcohol and how AA meetings not only changed his life but saved it.

Sir Anthony Hopkins discusses alcoholism and sobriety. (Photo: Reuters)

There is hardly any doubt in the fact that Sir Anthony Hopkins is one of the greatest actors of all time. He has been nominated for 6 Oscars and has won the Best Actor award twice for The Silence of the Lambs and The Father. However, during the early days of his career, Hopkins was battling alcoholism, and it nearly took his life. In a recent interview, Hopkins discusses how alcohol takes hold of one’s life and how he managed to finally let it go.

While talking to Late Show host Stephen Colbert, Hopkins was congratulated by Colbert for completing 50 years of sobriety. He asked whether the actor had any advice for someone going down a similar path, and Hopkins replied, “Be careful and get help. Because the illusion is that everyone is drinking, all the actors drank. It’s useful because it makes you feel good, and you feel that you can belong, and that’s fine. Then it becomes kind of an egoistical thing, where you’re drinking because you think yourself to be a rebel. But death waits for you very quickly. It can rip you apart, and that is what happened to me.”

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He described his own alcoholism and recalled an incident from 1975, which completely changed his life. “I would drink anything I couldn’t chew, and I couldn’t stop. One day I was here in Beverly Hills, driving my car in a blackout. December 27, 1975, and I lost my car. My agent was there at the time, and he told me, ‘You didn’t lose your car. We took it from you and took it to the garage to keep you off the streets. I looked up to a eucalyptus tree and said, ‘Someone likes me.’ I knew that I was an alcoholic, and I made a phone call to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), and it changed my life drastically,” said Hopkins.

Hopkins admitted that AA helped him immensely and that the first thing he realised in those meetings was the fact that he wasn’t anyone unique. He said, “I went to my first meeting, and I realised that everyone in my room was like me. The great ego buster was knowing that I was not alone, not different and not unique. I was just an afraid human being. That laughter, when people were telling their stories because drunks are crazy and dangerous. I never preach it to other people; I never say a word.”

When asked about how else AA helped him, Hopkins said, “I have evidence right now. I am 88 years of age, and I should have been dead years ago. Seriously dead. A lot of my contemporaries, they didn’t stop; they died.”

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