The actor from Avatar: The Way of Water gave up drinking eight years ago, and in the most recent Variety, he opened up about his struggle with addiction.
Sam Worthington almost lost everything to booze, including his wife and his career.
The Avatar: The Way of Water actor, 46, is sharing his experience of addiction for the first time in the most recent issue of Variety. He has been sober for eight years at this point.
He told the magazine that after the massive success of Avatar in 2009, he frequently drank four or five glasses of Champagne while waiting at the airport for a first-class trip.
He would start drinking early in the day. “I wasn’t fond of who I was. I used alcohol to get through the day.”
He said that nine out of ten persons were unable to tell. “Although they could not tell when they looked at me, they could smell it on me. Even if I don’t believe I was doing it very well, I was still performing my duties.”
He struggled with the loss of privacy that comes with fame, was arrested in 2014 for assaulting a photographer, and would become agitated when people approached.
According to Worthington, “I’d go crazy over someone asking me for a picture or taking a picture of me. “If an individual came up to me, my anxiousness would skyrocket.”
He increased his drinking due to his newfound celebrity, which he attributes to the milieu he was up in.
It is ingrained in Australian society, according to Worthington. “We don’t always discuss AA and other topics like that. You don’t understand that it’s a disease and that some individuals are built differently.”
He calls himself an emotional alcoholic. The longer I drank, the more erratic and emotional I became, he admitted to Variety. “I don’t think I was particularly harsh, but I might be aggressive or petulant,”
Their wife, Lara, eventually had enough. She informed him, “You can do what you want, but I don’t need to be around this.”
