Yesterday, Demi Lovato was rushed to the hospital for what media outlets reported was a heroin overdose. Over the last several years, the singer had been open and candid about her past substance abuse issues. Last month, she was equally frank about falling off the wagon again after six years of sobriety with the release of her song, “Sober.”
In light of this news, it’s important to remember that there are many high-profile figures out there who have also struggled with sobriety and that this issue is more rampant than many of us realize.
Here are just a few of the many celebrities who have opened up about the struggle to reach sobriety:
10. Zac Efron
Efron went to rehab in 2013 for a cocaine addiction and is reportedly doing his best to stay sober.
According to Efron, his addiction was compounded by an alcohol problem. “I was drinking a lot, way too much,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014, acknowledging that drugs were also involved. “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. I wouldn’t take anything back; I needed to learn everything I did. But it was an interesting journey, to say the least.”
“It’s a never-ending struggle,” he admitted.
9. Naomi Campbell
The iconic supermodel dealt with alcohol addiction for almost a decade before finally seeking help.
“The time between 1998 and 2005 was especially bad,” Campbell told Vogue in 2010. “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.”
8. Daniel Radcliffe
The Harry Potter actor says that experiencing fame at such a young age definitely contributed to his struggles with alcohol. Since 2010, he has reportedly been sober.
“Seriously, in the last three years of drinking, I blacked out nearly every time. Blacking out was my thing,” he told Sky Arts in 2014. “The drinking was unhealthy and damaging to my body and my social life. That’s beyond question.”
“I was living in constant fear of who I’d meet, what I might have said to them, what I might have done with them, so I’d stay in my apartment for days and drink alone. I was a recluse at 20. It was pathetic — it wasn’t me. I’m a fun, polite person and it turned me into a rude bore. For a long time, people were saying to me, ‘We think you have a problem,’ but in the end, I had to come to the realization myself.”
7. Russell Brand
Brand has been frank about his history of addiction and even penned a book on the subject, entitled Recovery, in 2017.
“Drugs and alcohol are not my problem, reality is my problem, drugs and alcohol are my solution,” Brand wrote in an essay for The Guardian in 2013. “If this seems odd to you it is because you are not an alcoholic or a drug addict. You are likely one of the 90% of people who can drink and use drugs safely. I have friends who can smoke weed, swill gin, even do crack and then merrily get on with their lives. For me, this is not an option. I will relinquish all else to ride that buzz to oblivion. Even if it began as a timid glass of Chardonnay on a ponce’s yacht, it would end with me necking the bottle, swimming to shore and sprinting to Bethnal Green in search of a crack house. I look to drugs and booze to fill up a hole in me; unchecked, the call of the wild is too strong.”
6. Jamie Lee Curtis
Following a routine cosmetic procedure in her 30’s, Curtis apparently developed an addiction to painkillers. She finally kicked the habit over 15 years ago and has been sober ever since.
“The morphine becomes the warm bath from which to escape painful reality. I was a lucky one,” Curtis wrote in a Huffington Post essay in 2009. “I was able to see that the pain had started long ago and far away and that finding the narcotic was merely a matter of time. The pain needed numbing. My recovery from drug addiction is the single greatest accomplishment of my life … but it takes work — hard, painful work — but the help is there, in every town and career, drug/drink freed members of society, from every single walk and talk of life to help and guide.”
5. Ben Affleck
Affleck has been to rehab for alcoholism twice — once in 2001, and again in 2017.
“I have completed treatment for alcohol addiction; something I’ve dealt with in the past and will continue to confront,” Affleck wrote in a Facebook post in 2017. “I want to live life to the fullest and be the best father I can be. I want my kids to know there is no shame in getting help when you need it, and to be a source of strength for anyone out there who needs help but is afraid to take the first step.”
“This was the first of many steps being taken towards a positive recovery.”
4. Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey was addicted to alcohol before she even turned fifteen years old. By the age of 18, she was in a rehab facility, and has reportedly been sober since.
“That’s really why I got sent to boarding school aged 14 — to get sober,” she told GQ in 2012. “I was a big drinker at the time. I would drink every day. I would drink alone.”
“My parents were worried, I was worried. I knew it was a problem when I liked it more than I liked doing anything else. I was like, I’m f***ed. I am totally f***ed. Like, at first it’s fine and you think you have a dark side — it’s exciting — and then you realize the dark side wins every time if you decide to indulge in it. It’s also a completely different way of living when you know that, it’s like being a different species of person. It was horrific. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
3. Pete Davidson
The Saturday Night Live star began self-medicating to deal with chronic pain, and eventually found that he was addicted to marijuana.
“I got Crohn’s disease when I was 17 or 18,” Davidson told High Times in 2016. “And I found that the medicines that the doctors were prescribing me and seeing all these doctors and trying new things, weed would be the only that that would help me eat. My stomach would be in pain all day and I wouldn’t be able to eat, but then I’d smoke and I’d be able to eat and be able to do my shows. I wouldn’t be able to do SNL if I didn’t smoke weed.”
In a since-deleted Instagram post in 2017, Davidson told his fans that he is now sober.
“Just wanted to let you guys know I’m okay. I know I’ve kinda been missing, on social media and on the show. I quit drugs and am happy and sober for the first time in 8 years. It wasn’t easy, but I got a great girl, great friends and I consider myself a lucky man.”
2. Robert Downey Jr.
RDJ is pretty notorious for his past substance abuse issues, which led to a significant amount of tabloid attention in the 90’s. Today, the actor has over 15 years of sobriety under his belt.
“Job one is get out of that cave,” Downey Jr. 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.”
“You’re confronted with histories and predispositions and influences and feelings and unspoken traumas or needs that weren’t met, and all of a sudden you’re three miles into the woods. Can you help someone get out of those woods? Yes, you can. By not getting lost looking for them.”
1. Chrissy Teigen
The Twitter Clapback Queen herself says that she’s had to come to terms with her alcohol consumption in recent years, and has decided to turn to sobriety.
“I got used to being in hair and makeup and having a glass of wine,” Teigen told Cosmopolitan in 2017. “Then that glass of wine would carry over into me having one before the awards show. And then a bunch at the awards show. And then I felt bad for making kind of an ass of myself to people that I really respected. And that feeling, there’s just nothing like that. You feel horrible. It’s not a good look for me, for John, for anybody.”
“I used to think it was kind of nutty to have to go totally sober, but now I get it,” she added. “I don’t want to be that person … I have to fix myself.”