Tom Holland is opening up about his journey to sobriety.
“I was definitely addicted to alcohol, not shying away from that at all,” the Spider-Man actor revealed on an episode of On Purpose with Jay Shetty.
Holland shared he had challenged himself to “dry January” in 2022, abstaining from alcohol after a particularly boozy holiday season. He admitted it was much harder than he anticipated.
“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 p.m. It just really scared me.
Holland decided he needed to change something and challenged himself to not drink until his birthday on June 1, 2022.
“By the time I got to June 1, I was the happiest I’ve ever been in my life,” he said. “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.”
The actor ultimately realized he relied on alcohol to “feel more comfortable in a social environment.”
“I would look back and recognize that I would go to events for work, and I can’t enjoy myself until I’ve had a few beers, and I just felt so much pressure,” he said.
Holland is currently celebrating a year and a half of sobriety.
“If I could encourage someone to drink less, that would be great,” Holland said. “But I don’t want to start getting into the world of, ‘You need to stop drinking.’ Because it’s not for me to say.”
Holland isn’t the only young person seeking sobriety. More and more Gen Zers are adopting a “sober curious” mindset — they’re not necessarily going cold turkey, but they are drinking less than they used to. One study from Berenberg found that Gen Z is even drinking around 20 percent less per capita than Millennials were drinking at their age.
