Actor Tom Holland, best known for playing Spider-Man on the big screen since he was a teenager, has opened up about his alcohol addiction, and subsequent sobriety. In a new interview, Holland said that as a challenge last year, he gave up drinking for a month, but realised very soon that it was ‘all that he could think about’, day and night. After continuing his challenge till June, he was a transformed person; he was sleeping better, and was less on-edge at work.
Holland appeared on the Jay Shetty podcast, where he opened up about his alcoholism, being unable to function socially in the early stages of his sobriety, and eventually finding replacements that help him continue down this path. He said that he probably inherited a taste for alcohol from his mother’s side of the family, and revealed that his mother has also given up drinking along with him. “Anyone that has a beer a day probably has a little bit of a problem,” he said.
“One of the problems with alcohol is that if you came out with alcohol right now, and alcohol wasn’t a thing, and you were like, ‘I’ve invented this drink that’ll make you either really happy, or really aggressive, or really stupid, and we’re just going to sell it to the masses’, people will be like, ‘No, mate, keep your funky juice, we don’t want that, that sounds terrible’.”
About his own journey, the actor said, “I’ve had periods in my life where I’ve given up drinking and gone back to drinking, but this time, it was just different. I really worked to change my mindset, and I asked myself, ‘Why do you drink?’ And a lot of the time, my answer would be, ‘To feel more comfortable in a social environment’. And I just put myself in those environments. I’d force myself to hang out, and go to a club, go to a bar, go to a dinner…” He admitted that he was avoiding those places in the beginning, because he didn’t feel that he could go and ‘not have a drink’, but later, he discovered that if he’s only enjoying himself when he’s drinking, he has a problem. “With me, most of it is just the ritual of cracking something open and sharing it with friends and drinking it. Whether it’s sparkling water or beer, I now can’t see a difference.” Source: Indian Express