When an entertainer becomes famous, it’s often not long before they find themselves living a jet-setting, hard-partying lifestyle.
After all, that kind of excess is a big part of what draws many of us to the allure of fame, but it’s also usually a coping mechanism when the stresses that come with that fame finally reveal themselves.
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But as celebrities of all ages and walks of life are increasingly learning, it’s not a particularly healthy one. What seems like a helping hand in times of pressure can soon turn into a false friend that threatens to destroy people’s lives entirely.
For that reason, many who have been in showbiz for a long time are now embracing sobriety. And in a recent, powerful Instagram post, actor Josh Brolin shared just how much his life and relationships have improved in the eight years since he’s cleaned up.
For Brolin, there was a key source of trauma that influenced his later substance abuse issues.
As he told The Guardian , he came to realize that for the longest time, he struggled to move past the fallout from the death of his mother when he was in his 20s.
As he said, “I was always such a momma’s boy.”
But by 2013, it became clear to Brolin just how much damage his way of trying to cope with this loss had done to his life.
That year saw him arrested for public intoxication and it also marked the moment when his nine-year marriage to actress Diane Lane collapsed entirely.
According to People , he would enter rehab before the year was out.
As Brolin put it, “I realized that I was on a destructive path. I knew that I had to change and mature. It was like I stepped back and saw the hamster wheel.”
And on November 1, Brolin made a heartfelt post explaining how it feels to be off that wheel after eight years of maintaining a sober lifestyle.
In his words, “Sobriety is finally loving without every thought being about how it affects only you. Sobriety is a moment of being able to love and be consumed by the glee it brings someone else. Sobriety is knowing the difference between selfishness and integrity.”
He also described the joy of finding a card in his truck from his wife Kathryn Brolin expressing her gratitude for making this important decision that also included a collage of the two children they share together.
Indeed, it’s them, his friends, and God that Brolin now holds responsible for “the most punk rock sobriety imaginable.”
And in his children, Brolin could see some clear signs that he had made the right decision by embracing sobriety.
As he put it, “Sobriety is when your children look at you and trust what they see (you can see it in their pupils, and the way they stand before you) — that they know they are not being cultivated into some idea but celebrated for the original garden they are growing into.”
h/t: The Guardian , Instagram | @joshbrolin
