Drew Barrymore says getting sober was most ‘honouring’ thing she has done for her family

15 April 2024

Drew Barrymore thinks getting sober was the most “honouring” thing she has done for her alcoholism-plagued family.

Drew Barrymore thinks getting sober was the most ‘honouring’ thing she has done for her alcoholism-plagued family

The ‘ET: The Extra Terrestrial’ actress, 49, infamously got hooked on drugs and drink by the time she was a teen and was sent to a rehabilitation institution to get sober aged 13 – before she decided to quit booze for good in 2019 and announced her sobriety in 2021.

Referring to her family history of alcoholism, she has now told People: “I think, for me, stopping drinking is one of the most honouring things I can do to the Barrymore name because we have all been such hedonists.

“Don’t look to me as the pillar of health and wellness and having it all together.

“It’s just like, ‘You know what? This didn’t work for our family, and I’m going to stop it.’

“I’m going to be the one to break the link in that chain and maybe my kids and their kids will be better off for it.”

Drew comes from a long line of stars including her actor dad John Barrymore, whose siblings were Oscar-winners Ethel and Lionel Barrymore.

He struggled with alcoholism from the age of 14, while her grandad succumbed to it in 1942.

Drew revisited the Van Nuys Psychiatric Hospital where she battled to get sober during an emotional segment of her ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ in September 2021 to reflect on her journey to sobriety.

She said while battling tears: “I was a real wild child and I just got so out of control that no one knew what to do with me.

“They drove me here in the middle of the night and they walked me through those two doors and when you go through those two doors you do not come out. And I was there for a year-and-a-half.

“I will never lose sight of this part of my story and I have seen and been through things and they’ve helped me just recognize in all of us that we go through stuff.

“And it can’t be embarrassing. It has to be our strengths, it has to be something that we can be proud of because we overcame it and we look back with honour and humour.”

Drew did not fully stop drinking until she went through a painful divorce from Will Kopelman, 45, in 2016.

In 2022, Drew said she would use alcohol to “numb the pain” but knew that was not the answer to her troubles.