Ben Affleck talks about the first year of sobriety being a 10 out of 10 in difficulty. He describes how addiction extends beyond alcohol to shopping, gambling, and other compulsive behaviors, and explains that real change came only after he suffered enough to want it internally, especially after seeing the impact on his kids.
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How hard has that been to get sober? I mean, to stay sober? How difficult is it? On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being like, it's ridiculously hard.
I'll tell you the truth.
It depends right at the beginning, it's very, very hard as 10.
Okay?
You start off because you're in the habit of doing this, whatever it is, and, you know, compulsive behavior. It's like if you limit to alcohol or alcohol and drugs, it's a sort of certain segment of society.
If you look at the people that.
Overeat, eat their fucking feelings and end up just as unhealthy, it's a lot more. If you look at people who shop and gamble or have sex or relationships or use the fucking phone, we're very programmed to seek out rewards and get compulsive about it, gamble, whatever. Nonetheless, it's fucking hard because you've taught yourself, this is the only way to ease my pain. I'm in pain. This is the only way to make it better. And I used to go to meetings, and here are all these, like, old timers say, I'm a grateful alcoholic. And, you know, the obsession left me a long time ago. And I would get so angry, you know, I'd be like, fuck you. You're not grateful. What are you grateful for? You fucked your life up. You're grateful. Congratulations, boy. I want some of that, too. And the obsession left.
Who the fuck are you doing here? You don't want a drink? You're not alcohol. Get the fuck out of here. I'm dealing with problems. I want to have a drink. How about that?
You know, you're. You're just. And I resented that for a long time. And I went through a series of, you know, I got so I sober for a year, year and a half.
I wanted to be sober.
I committed to it. And the problem with that fight is, like, you can win a thousand times. You know, you only have to give in once, and you can. You're never going to win all the time. So something fundamental has to change. And I hate to say it, but the cure for addiction, the only cure I've seen, and not like these fucking overpriced rehabs or a lot of these fraudulent fixes that are sold to people. They're good people who will support you. Alcohol, I think, by and large, is a good organization. It's not the only one. The cure for addiction is suffering. You suffer enough that something inside you goes undone. And I'm lucky because I hit that point before. I lost really the things that were the most important. Not my career or money, always my relationship with my kids. And when I felt as if it impacted them, I recognized was the worst day of my life. I made amends. And for a while, I thought, maybe this is temporary. Maybe this feeling is going to go away. But since that day, I swear to Christ, I have not ever wanted to drink once.
Wow.
So it's the easiest thing in the world because every time I think about it, I'm just like, holy shit, that's the worst idea in the world. I don't want that. I can't do that. And that's the piece that people find. So now I'm that asshole who's like.
You know, I'm grateful. I learned a lot.
I actually got to be a better person through this process.
