Samuel L. Jackson has been clean and sober for years, but staying that way remains a struggle, says Sean O’Hagan in the London Observer. The 59-year-old actor spent much of the 1970s and ’80s in what he calls a “drug fog,” ingesting large quantities of crack and alcohol. To this day, he knows that any backsliding could be disastrous. “I ain’t the kind of guy who can have one drink. I never could. When I bought a six-pack, I didn’t drink a couple of beers and put the rest in the fridge for later. I drank the lot.”
His low point came in 1990, when he was working as an understudy to Charles Dutton in the Broadway drama The Piano Lesson. Jackson began taking crack to “drown out” Dutton’s voice, which he says was “in his head” day and night. One day his wife found him unconscious on the kitchen floor, and he agreed to go to rehab. He has stayed sober ever since, but it still takes effort. “When I’m in New York, I still go to meetings. I go right up to Harlem to that same place I got clean. It still feels good not to be one of those eight-days-clean stories.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Living the 'pura vida' in Costa RicaThe Week Recommends From thick, tangled rainforest and active volcanoes to monkeys, coatis and tapirs, this is a country with plenty to discover
-
Without Cuba, US State Sponsors of Terrorism list shortensThe Explainer How the remaining three countries on the U.S. terrorism blacklist earned their spots
-
Crossword: January 21, 2025The Week's daily crossword
