Kiefer Sutherland isn’t putting the bottle down permanently, despite his storied past with alcohol.
“One of the things I love to do is go out with my friends and tell stories and have a bunch of drinks,” Sutherland shared on a recent episode of “The Jess Cagle Interview.” “Having said that, I can also look back on my life and tell you very squarely that the only bad things that have ever happened to me in my life have been because I like to go to bars and have drinks with my friends.”
Sutherland’s turbulent history with booze includes a 48-day stint in jail following a DUI arrest in 2007.
Of his evenings out imbibing, he says he “enjoy[s] those moments with friends, despite the possibility of consequences.”
“I would be lying if I told you that there weren’t moments where I felt I let it get away from me. So it’s kind of been a push and pull through my life,” the “Designated Survivor” star continued.
But he noted, “I was never the guy, if something was wrong in my life or something wasn’t right, I didn’t go drown my sorrows.”
As for sobriety, the 49-year-old disclosed his reasoning for sticking with the sauce.
“I have, at times, for stretches of time [quit boozing],” Sutherland said. “But at some point, I’ve made a decision, right or wrong, for myself that I would rather work really hard so I could still have some of those times. Than to simply stop. That’s a choice I’ve made and I live with that choice.”
Sutherland, who was once dubbed “the most unprofessional dude in the world” by former “24” co-star Freddie Prinze Jr., revealed the songs on his debut album, “Down a Whole,” shed light on his storied past.
“It’s not something I do alone. I like going out with friends after work. It’s a way of letting loose,” he told the New York Times last month. “Having said that, I can tell you that if I look back on my life, any of the negative things that have happened usually have [drinking] as a root cause, whether it was a DUI, or fighting, or a breakup, a relationship not working. There’s a price to pay for it. If you take a look at the songs, none of them are positive.”