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Content warning: This article makes reference to alcohol and addiction.
Tom Holland has revealed that he stopped drinking in 2022 after realising that he felt “enslaved” by alcohol.
As IGN reports, the Spider-Man star stated during an interview on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast that “all I could think about was having a drink”. He revealed that after challenging himself to stop drinking for several months to prove to himself that he didn’t “have a problem”, he became the happiest he’s ever been.
“It’s interesting. I didn’t one day wake up and say, ‘I’m giving up drinking'. I, just like many Brits, had a very, very boozy December,” the actor told Shetty. “I’ve always been able to drink a lot. […] And I decided to just give up for January - I just wanted to do Dry January. And all I could think about was having a drink. It was all I could think about. I was waking up thinking about it. I was checking the clock, when’s it 12 PM? It just really scared me. I was just like, ‘Wow, maybe I have a little bit of an alcohol thing.’”
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At that point, he decided to remain sober throughout February, too, but after the second month passed, he found he was still “really struggling” and felt like he couldn’t go out to social events.
“I started to really worry that maybe I had an alcohol problem,” Holland continued. “So I decided that I would wait until my birthday, which is June 1. I said to myself, 'If I can do six months without alcohol, then I can prove to myself that I don’t have a problem.'
“By the time I had got to June 1, I was the happiest I had ever been in my life,” he explained. “I could sleep better. I could handle problems better. Things that would go wrong on set that would normally set me off, I could take in my stride. I had so much better mental clarity. I felt healthier, I felt fitter. And I just said to myself, ‘Why am I so enslaved to this drink? Why am I so obsessed by the idea of having this drink?’ And I would look back and recognise that I would go to events for work, and I can’t enjoy myself until I’ve had a few beers. I just felt so much pressure.”
A year and a half into his alcohol-free life, Holland says that stepping away from drink is the “best thing I’ve ever done”, and it “doesn’t even cross my mind” anymore.