Russell Brand.Photo: Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty
Russell Brandis celebrating a huge milestone — afterstruggling with a heroin addictionin his twenties, he’s now been sober for 19 years.
The comedian and actor, 46, reflected on the nearly two decades that he’s now spent free of drugs or alcohol in a video shared on social media on Monday, his 19-year anniversary.
“On the 13th of December, 2021, I’d like to say thank you, to all of you, and I’d like to say to any of you that are suffering from addiction or know anyone suffering from addiction, there is a way out. It is possible,” Brand said.
“It is possible to live differently if you are a drug addict. It is possible to live differently if you are suffering. It is possible to live differently if you live in a twisted and broken culture.”
Brand acknowledged, though, that going sober typically feels like a daunting task for someone struggling with addiction or dependency on drugs and alcohol.
TheForgetting Sarah Marshallstar has been open about dealing with an addiction to heroin and agreeing to go to rehab in 2002. Brand has been sober since, andwrote the bookRecovery: Freedom from Our Addictionsin 2017, documenting that time in his life and his work sponsoring others as they go through rehab. He has said that the overdose death of his close friend Amy Winehouse spurred him to do more to help drug addicts.
“The mentality and behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help they have no hope,” he wrotein a 2013 essay forThe Guardian.
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In his video on Monday, Brand said that he hopes to be an example for others hoping to get sober.
“If someone as crazy and hopeless and lost as I was can become a father and a husband and a member of various communities, committed to service and change, then there is hope for all of us,” he said.
“I believe in recovery. I believe in you. I believe in our future,”
source: people.com
