Vinnie Jones was an aggressive "lunatic" when he was younger and only learned to control his famous temper when he stopped drinking.
Vinnie Jones has opened up about his drinking and his fiery temper
The 59-year-old footballer-turned-actor was known for his fiery outbursts in his younger days, but he has been teetotal for more than a decade and he's now revealed he looked back on his past with the help of a psychologist and concluded he was deeply affected by his parents' divorce as a child.
He told The Sun newspaper: "It was my first kind of trauma in my life, because it wasn’t common then. It was looked down on.
"I had a lot of aggression as a young man. And when I went to a psychologist, we pinpointed it back to the aggression, mental health and frustration.
"Put that in a glass and put beer with it, and then you’ve got a ... lunatic on your hands."
Vinnie eventually gave up alcohol following a heart-to-heart with Sex Pistols musician Steve Jones, adding: "We’d had a good drink one night and I phoned Steve. I said, ‘I haven’t got a problem’. He went, ‘Yeah, you have’. He knew. Steve’s 30, 40 years sober now. And he was the one I turned to."
Vinnie also credited his 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' director Guy Ritchie with helping him learn to control his temper, adding: "He said, ‘We’ve all got a dog. Yours is a big [one]. You’ve got to control it. You’ve got to keep it in the kennel’.
"That helped me, what Guy said."
Since giving up drinking, Vinnie now leads a quiet life on a farm in West Sussex, England and he has no plans for a big blow out party to celebrate his 60th birthday next year.
The movie star concluded: "The old Vinnie would have had a big bash. I’m done with it all really."
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