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Drew Barrymore is getting candid about her sobriety after hitting rock bottom following her divorce in 2016 from art adviser Will Kopelman. Speaking with People for their new cover story, the actress called the time following her split “cripplingly difficult.”
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“There are times where you can look at someone you think is a strong person and see them so broken and go, ‘How the f— did they get there?'” said the talk show host. “And I was that person. I broke.” Baremore went on to explain that she attempted to deal with her pain by drinking excessive amounts of alcohol.
“It was just trying to numb the pain and feel good — and alcohol totally did that for me,” she stated “The drinking thing for me was a constant, like, ‘You cannot change. You are weak and incapable of doing what’s best for you. You keep thinking you will master this thing, and it’s getting the better of you.'”
Drew Barrymore for PEOPLE
Growing up as a young actress, Barrymore was always treated for drug and alcohol addiction as she began to make her name by herself after starring in E.T. The actress went on to share that the distress she felt most recently had hit her harder than her earlier problems.
“After the life I planned for my kids didn’t work out — I almost think that was harder than the stuff [I went through] as a kid,” she noted. “It felt a lot more real because it wasn’t just me. It was about these kids that I cared so much about. And then I probably cared so much that I was only giving to them and not taking care of myself. It was a messy, painful, excruciating walk through the fire and a come back to life kind of trajectory.”
Drew Barrymore and Will Kopelman
Barrymore stated that she gave up drinking after she spent some time in therapy. She went on to channel her energy into developing her talk show, The Drew Barrymore Show, which gave her something to “focus on” and pour herself into.
The actress revealed her sobriety back on December 4, 2021, telling CBS This Morning she had been abstaining from alcohol for almost three years.
“One of the bravest things you can do is slay those dragons and finally change an awful cycle in which you’ve found yourself stuck,” the Golden Globe winner revealed last month. “[I have] finally become free of the torture of guilt and dysfunction.”
