As Alec Baldwin currently awaits trial for involuntary manslaughter, the Rust actor is opening up about a major accomplishment: 39 years of sobriety.
The 66-year-old actor recently appeared on an episode of Our Way With Paul Anka and Skip Bronson where he discussed his troubled past with alcohol and drugs.
Baldwin was talking about Frank Sinatra when he was casually asked if he considered himself “a drinker.”
The question prompted Baldwin to talk about the time he “snorted a line of cocaine from here to Saturn.”
“I don’t discuss this a lot, I discuss it every now and then when it makes sense,” he said. “I’m 39 years sober. I got sober Feb. 23, 1985. Because, as I tell people — and you’ll appreciate this — I was in Los Angeles in ’83, and I had a two-year, daily white-hot problem.”
The father of eight previously spoke about his drug and substance abuse problems in his 2017 memoir, Nevertheless.
“Every day for two years, I think I snorted a line of cocaine from here to Saturn,” he continued. “We did one on the rings of Saturn, then we … took it back home. I mean, cocaine was like coffee back then — everybody was doing it all day long. I did a lot of coke.”
He noted that once he finally quit drugs, he noticed his drinking increased, which is something he was told to expect. Baldwin eventually quit drinking cold turkey.
“And the thing I miss is drinking. I don’t miss drugs at all, but I do miss drinking. I like to drink.”
The native New Yorker explained how returning to New York City has helped him maintain his sobriety.
“New York relaxes me, I walk around and I see aspects of it that I’ve never seen before,” he said. “I do try to meditate, but meditating with seven children is like trying to play ping pong on the deck of an aircraft carrier. It’s a real pain in the ass, man.”
While Alec Baldwin has certainly suffered his fair share of controversies over the years, it doesn’t diminish the fact that he’s 39 years sober. What an accomplishment!
