Terry Crews is convinced therapy saved his life when he hit “rock bottom”.
Terry Crews with his wife Rebecca King-Crews
The former NFL player turned actor, 53, said his workaholic “grind” mentality almost destroyed his life and marriage and he realised he was chasing “hollow” goals.
He told psychotherapist Amy Morin, 42, on the ‘Verywell Mind Podcast’: “For almost my first 40 years on Earth, (toughness) was a battle to get up the earliest, to work the longest, to do the most work.
“And then I wore myself out. This grind will eat you up alive. It’s literally a grinder. And if you have that mindset, it will totally take you out in a lot of ways and you’ll be over it before you think you’re started. But it can really, really eat you up.”
Crews also said he had to change his attitude to what turned out to be “life saving” therapy before he went into counselling.
He added: “The obstacle was therapy itself. In my community and where I grew up, it was therapy (that) was seen as quackery. And actually doing something to really talk through your own issues, thinking about your own thinking was viewed as quackery.”
It took one of his friends to change his outlook on getting help, with Crews adding: “He said, ‘Terry, I can’t promise you you’re going to get your wife and family back but you’ve got to get better for you.'
“That was (a) watershed (moment)… because I did everything in my life for rewards. Everything in my life was based on, if I do this, I’m supposed to get this. If I did this, I’m supposed to get this trophy. I’m supposed to get this money. If I do this, I get sex. If I do this, I get fame.
“I got the car. I got the house. I got the wife, I got this. And then you point all these things out and intrinsically, you were hollow.
“And I was hollow. And finally, I was at rock bottom. My wife was gone. My family was gone. And I had no other choice. That whole phrase about you getting better for you meant therapy.”
The ‘America’s Got Talent: Extreme’ host and ‘Deadpool 2’ actor has previously opened up about turbulent times in his 32-year marriage to former beauty queen Rebecca King-Crews, 56, with whom he shares four daughters and a son, actor Isaiah Crews, 17.
He told in his 2014 memoir ‘Manhood: How to Be a Better Man – Or Just Live With One’ he plunged into a pornography addiction so severe it nearly broke up his relationship with Rebecca.
Two years later on, in his three-part Facebook video series ‘Dirty Little Secret’, Crews said: “My wife was literally like, ‘I don’t know you anymore, I’m out of here.
“That changed me. I had to change because I realized this thing is a major, major problem."
Crews, worth an estimated $25 million and who got therapy for his porn addiction, added in 2018: “When someone knows you from good all the way to the rottenest, dirtiest part of you, and loves you anyway, that’s the rarity, that’s where you want to be.”
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