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Sir Anthony Hopkins says he realised he needed help after admitting driving a car drunk
Double Oscar winner Sir Anthony Hopkins has described how he realised he needed help to give up alcohol after driving a car while drunk.
The Welsh actor said he packed in booze on 29 December 1975 after he was “drunk out of my skull”.
Hopkins, who turns 87 on New Year’s Eve, said after that night he went to seek help for “people like me,” and has now been 49 years sober.
The Port Talbot born-star, who won best actor Oscars for The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 and The Father 30 years later, posted on Instagram that since stopping drinking, he has had a “wonderful life”.
Hopkins said he was “having fun” at the time but then realised he was in “big, big trouble”.
“Having fun is wonderful, having a drink is fine. But if you are having a problem with the booze, there is help,” he told his followers.
In 2018, Hopkins opened up on his battle with alcoholism when speaking to a group of students at the University of California.
He admitted he was “very difficult to work with” early in his stage career because he “was usually hungover”.
He said he turned his life around following a talk with a woman from Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in 1975, who asked him “why don’t you just trust in God?”.
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He discussed his problems with alcohol and the impact it had on his early career.
Hopkins said he had been “disgusted, busted and not to be trusted” while he was drinking.
But after speaking to the woman at AA, from then on the urge to drink was “never to return”, he added.
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