Drew Barrymore got sober after drinking to ‘numb the pain’ of divorce
Drew Barrymore says her 2016 divorce from Will Kopelman played a big role in her sobriety journey.
The actress told People in an interview published Tuesday that she “broke” after the “excruciating” breakup.
“It just took me down,” the “Drew Barrymore Show” host recalled, admitting that drinking helped her “numb the pain” of the split.
“It was just trying to … feel good — and alcohol totally did that for me,” the 47-year-old, who previously battled addiction as a child, explained.
“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,'” she continued, crediting daughters Olive, 10, and Frankie, 8, with motivating her therapy and eventual recovery.
“After the life I planned for my kids didn’t work out … it was a messy, painful, excruciating walk-through-the-fire-and-come-back-to-life kind of trajectory,” Barrymore said.
The Emmy nominee revealed her sobriety in December 2021, telling “CBS This Morning” viewers that she had been abstaining from alcohol for two and a half years.
The “Scream” star did not elaborate on her decision at the time, only noting that drinking “did not serve” her.
In November of the following year, Barrymore wrote in an essay for “Drew” magazine about her “liberating” sobriety.
“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 recalled last month. “[I have] finally become free of the torture of guilt and dysfunction.”
Barrymore also experimented with celibacy following her and Kopelman’s “confusing” divorce, in which “nothing went wrong.”
“I’m not a person who needs sex and has to go out there and engage with people on that level,” she wrote in an October blog post, calling Olive and Frankie her “focus.”
The “Santa Clarita Diet” alum gave People an update on her dating life, saying she goes out “every once in a while” but struggles to “fit” romantic connection into her life.