Spider-Man star Tom Holland has opened up about his struggles with alcohol addiction.
During an interview with Jay Shetty, the Marvel actor revealed he struggled with alcohol, saying he felt “enslaved” by it before he gave up drinking in 2022.
“I’m happy to say it — I was definitely addicted to alcohol,” he said. “I’m not shying away from that at all. 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. I’ve always been able to drink a lot.”
“All I could think about was having a drink,” he said. “I was waking up thinking about it. I was checking the clock, when’s it 12 PM?. It just really scared me.”
He eventually gave up drinking for Dry January in 2022 and decided to continue until his birthday later that June.
“By the time I got to June 1, I was the happiest I’ve 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.”
His newfound clarity made Holland question why he should continue drinking. “Why am I so enslaved to this drink?” he said. “Why am I so obsessed by the idea of having this drink?” Opening up about the causes of his alcohol addiction, Holland revealed that there was a lot of pressure due to the nature of his work.
“I would go to events for work, and I can’t enjoy myself until I’ve had a few beers,” he said. “I just felt so much pressure.”
Holland shot to fame as the MCU’s Spider-Man, appearing in Captain America: Civil War before getting his own solo trilogy, starting with Spider-Man: Homecoming.
“Because it’s so socially acceptable, the addiction side of it, the bad sides of it really do fly under the radar,” he added. “It’s honestly been the best thing that I’ve ever done.”
Holland has now been sober for a year and a half and he emphasizes that this is the best he’s felt.
“Once I really started feeling the health benefits and once I really started feeling like my full self, I was like ‘Oh my God, this is the best’,” he said.
“I don’t want to be that person who’s saying ‘You should get sober, you should get sober!’,” he added. “If I could encourage someone to drink less, that would be great.”
Want to read more about Tom Holland? Check out how he learned resilience from being a Tottenham fan as well as which Spider-Man movie is his absolute favourite.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
