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Anthony Hopkins gave up alcohol 49 years ago. His celebratory message may help others.

"I've had more fun these 49 years than ever."

Photo credit: Elena Torre from Viareggio, Italia

Anthony Hopkins has been sober for nearly five decades.

With the popularity of Dry January rising over the past decade, the new year is now a many people to experiment with sobriety. For some people, giving up alcohol for the month is a temporary break, but for others it's the start of a lifelong lifestyle change as they trade in beer, wine and cocktails for mocktails and non-alcoholic drinks.

Anthony Hopkins knows a thing or two about living life without alcohol, as he quit drinking nearly five decades ago. In a video shared with his fans just two days shy of his 87th birthday, the legendary actor celebrated his 49th sober anniversary and his message may help others who are on their own sobriety journey.

"Forty-nine years ago today, I stopped [gesture indicating drinking]," he shared. "And I was having such fun. But then I realized I was in big, big trouble because I couldn't remember anything and I was driving a car, drunk out of my skull. On that fatal day, I realized I needed help." Hopkins realized he wasn't unique and formed a group with others who had a problem with alcohol use. "And that was it, it was over," he said.

"I've had more fun these 49 years than ever," he added, countering the common perception that a sober life means a boring one. Alcohol is synonymous with fun in many people's minds—even Hopkins himself said that drinking was fun—which makes giving up alcohol seem like a big bummer. But Hopkins found, as so many do, that going alcohol-free doesn't mean missing out on life's pleasures. "I got sober—it sounds a dull word—but I've had a wonderful life," he said.

People who give up alcohol or other drugs do often miss the "high" they provide, which is why it's important to be aware of how "euphoric recall" can pull people back to dependency. “Euphoric recall is the act of remembering only the pleasures associated with stimulant use and not the adverse consequences," according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA). "Euphoric recall is a potent relapse risk factor because it minimizes clients’ perceptions of stimulants’ danger, promoting an ambivalence about quitting.”

Though a sober life isn't boring, it might seem boring at first. Writer Chelsey Flood has shared how she handled the perceived "agonizing boredom" of early sobriety and what she recognized as the alcohol-driven reasons for that feeling five years later:

1. You are used to being able to change your mood in seconds.

2. You falsely believe you need alcohol to do certain things.

3. You are not used to the way you feel.

4. Everything else takes more effort than drinking.

"Alcohol makes you feel good immediately after you drink it," she writes. "It gives you a rush and quietens the part of your brain that worries about everything. After you quit, you have to learn ways of doing this without turning to beer. At first, every alternative seems to take a lot longer to create the same effects to a lesser degree. This sucks. And there is no way around it, except to stay on the path of sobriety and learn new coping strategies and relaxation techniques."

The effort is worth it, according to Flood. "Now I’m almost five years sober, the idea of not drinking being boring is laughable," she writes. "Life has improved ten times over since I quit drinking."

People are taking the opportunity to share their congratulations as well as their own sober success stories on Hopkins' Instagram.

"Congratulations on 49 years sir! I just celebrated my first year sober this past month and I wouldn’t give up my sobriety for anything in the world."

"I shall be a year sober tomorrow and I’ve had the best year!! I’ve tried before but this time is different and I LOVE sobriety ❤️"

"Amazing. I'm 15 yrs sober now.We are so lucky to be living our best lives. ❤️"

"Thank you for this important share! 😊 I have been sober 3 years and 7 months 🙏 I am so glad that I can share this path with one of my favorite actors ❤️"

"Congratulations! Thank you for the post. It’s 32 years, 6 months and 5 days here! Forever a challenge and I am staying vigilant!"

One person wrote, "If I’m doing the math right, I was also 38 when I quit alcohol. I have two years now, I can only hope to be so lucky and look back on 49. Congratulations!" Hopkins himself responded, "Congratulations on 2 years. One day at a time. You will find a life beyond your dreams. Wishing you a healthy 2025."

As Hopkins said, there are lots of resources for people who are looking to change their relationship with alcohol. SAMHSA has a National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or go to findtreatment.gov. Alcoholics Anonymous also has a self-assessment quiz that can help you determine if you might have a problem with alcohol.

As Anthony Hopkins, Tom Holland and others share the joy of sobriety and more and more non-alcoholic alternatives become available, there's never been a more opportune time to experiment with giving up alcohol—even if it's just for Dry January.

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Pop Culture

Matthew Perry beautifully shared how he wanted to be remembered a year before his death

"When I die, I don't want 'Friends' to be the first thing that's mentioned."

Q With Tom Power/Youtube, Wikipedia

Matthew Perry died unexpected on Oct 28

In the wake of Matthew Perry’s sudden death by apparent drowning on Oct 28, heartfelt tributes have been rolling in commemorating the actor for his iconic comedy roles—primarily his beloved character of Chandler Bing on the quintessential millennial sitcom “Friends.”

And while his charming, sardonic onscreen persona brought endless amounts of joy for fans, he would tell it wasn’t his biggest accomplishment. In fact, none of his acting roles were.

A year prior to his death, Perry had released his memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” where he opened up about his decades long sobriety journey from opioid addiction.

While promoting the book on the “Q with Tom Power” podcast, Perry revealed what he actually hoped would be his lasting legacy.

“I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life but the best thing about me, bar none, is that if an alcoholic or drug addict comes up to me and says, ‘Will you help me?’ I will always say ‘Yes, I know how to do that. I will do that for you, even if I can’t always do it for myself.’ So I do that, whenever I can. In groups, or one on one,” he told Power.

“I would like to be remembered as somebody who lived well, loved well, was a seeker. And [my] paramount thing is that [I] want to help people…” the actor continued, adding that his call to be of service led him to creating the Perry House in Malibu, a sober-living facility for men as well as his play, “The End of Longing,” written as a “personal message” to those struggling with addiction, or those who love someone with addiction.

And though Perry prioritized these contributions over his career, he was also a consummate realist…with a sense of humor.


“When I die, I know people will talk about Friends, Friends, Friends. And I’m glad of that, happy I’ve done some solid work as an actor, as well as given people multiple chances to make fun of my struggles on the world wide web…But when I die, as far as my so-called accomplishments go, it would be nice if Friends were listed far behind the things I did to try to help other people. I know it won’t happen, but it would be nice,” he said.

Following Perry’s passing at the age of 54, this powerful interview began making the rounds on social media once again, with countless fans noting how his words will indeed help those on the road to recovery.

Here is just a small sampling of what folks are saying:

“Rest in peace Matthew Perry. I'm sure your book will help countless other addicts and their families. We will miss your honesty, humbleness, and humor.”

“From an Irish family, full of drinking, arguments, death, I am so desperately sorry that MP has come to an early end. My son is recovering, I have sent this to him. Thank you. RIP Matthew Perry.”

“RIP. Your ability to voice how an addict feels, how their brain works, and what that means for them has helped me as I’ve processed alcoholic family members and friends’ lives. Thank you for bringing light to this.”

“His transparency and harsh honesty here about his addiction will stick with me forever. It's not easy. RIP brother.”

These are the lessons we all come to learn one way or another. One, that the human heart doesn’t necessarily measure success by fame or fortune, but by how we were able to make an impact for others. And two, that opening up about our struggles just might be the very thing to help us, all of us, heal.

Thank Matthew. For the laughs and for the honesty.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.

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Health

All hail the mocktail: Growing demand makes non-alcoholic socializing a lot more fun

Sober bars and events are growing in popularity with delicious, grown-up alternatives to alcohol.

Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash

Non-alcoholic drinks go way beyond club sodas and Shirley Temples.

For as long as there's been alcohol, there have been people who don't drink it. Some don't care for the taste, some don't like the buzz, some have religious prohibitions against it and some are recovering addicts who need to avoid it altogether.

Whatever reasons people have for not drinking, there's an unspoken attitude by some that they're missing out on a key part of social culture, especially when countless movies and TV shows portrays people winding down (or wooing one another) with wine and bonding over beers at bars. There's an air of camaraderie over sharing a cocktail or clinking champagne flutes together that's hard to capture with a basic Coke or sparkling water.

But what if you want that fun, social atmosphere without the alcohol? What if you want to go out and have fancy, alcohol-free drinks with your friends at night without being surrounded by drunk people? Where do you go for that?

Big cities like New York and Los Angeles have seen non-alcoholic options increasing on menus for a while, but the trend has spread to smaller cities and expanded to full bars, pop-up events and retail shops dedicated to sober drinking.

In fact, the Mindful Drinking Fest held on January 21 in Washington D.C. was sold out, as over 300 attendees sampled all manner of non-alcoholic beers, wines and mixed drinks. One of the event's organizers, award-winning bartender Derek Brown, told NPR that not drinking isn't actually new. Early bartending manuals all included plenty of non-alcoholic drinks, but post-Prohibition, the temperance movement took a hit. "People stopped treating people who don't drink alcohol like adults," he said.

Now temperance appears to be making a comeback with the younger generations of adults. A 2016 Heineken survey discovered that 75% of Millennials purposefully limited their alcohol intake on nights out, and Gen Zers across high-income Western nations are reportedly drinking far less than their elders. According to The Conversation, there's a handful of reasons younger folks are far more "sober curious" than their parents were, including a sense of responsibility about their futures, greater consciousness about wellness, a better understanding of the health risks of even small amounts of alcohol and shifting attitudes about what's cool.

But young folks aren't the only ones hopping on the sobriety train. Even as the pandemic saw a spike in heavy drinking, it also caused a lot of people to examine their relationship with alcohol. With annual traditions like "Dry January" and "Sober October" growing in popularity, people are at least trying out the alcohol-free life for a while—what Brown refers to as an "alcoholiday."

This growing demand for alternatives to alcohol is driving alcohol-free establishments with clever names such as Absence of Proof, Sans Bar, Spirited Away and more to pop up all over the place. And we're not just talking about Shirley Temples or virgin daiquiris here. Today's alcohol-free mixed drinks are far more sophisticated, with new distilled spirits, bitters, and other ingredients creating complex flavors without a sickeningly high sugar content.

Abby Ehmann owned a regular bar in New York and enjoyed her regular customers, but also saw the devasting impacts alcohol had on some of her patrons. So she opened a sober bar named Hekate in 2022. "I wanted to create that sort of vibe and community for people, but take alcohol out of the equation," she told NBC News. "Here we have the community and the vibe without the booze."

The culture around drinking is slowly but surely changing, and the success of events like the Mindful Drinking Fest and sober bars seems to be proving that alcohol isn't the necessary social lubricant many believe it to be.

As Brown told NPR, "All the positive emotions we associate with alcohol—they come from just being with people and tasting delicious, wonderful things," he said. "You don't really need alcohol."

Cheers to that.

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Hayden Panettiere proves that doing what's best for your child isn't always what's easy

Sometimes a parent's love looks like giving up to others, but it's far from it.

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Hayden Panettiere proves what's best isn't always easy.

Parenting isn't always easy. I don't think there's a single person on this planet that would proclaim it's easy to parent a child and to parent that child well. But there's an additional layer to trying to be a good parent when you're also struggling with addiction. Hayden Panettiere knows that struggle all too well and recently went on Red Table Talk to discuss her life and the difficult decision she had to make when it came to parenting her daughter.

Panettiere has a 7-year-old daughter that she shares with her ex-husband Wladimir Klitschko, a world heavyweight boxing champion from Ukraine. When discussing her daughter on Red Table Talk she revealed that she signed over full custody to her ex-husband while she was struggling with her sobriety. While Panettiere feels she had little choice at the time due to how it was presented, she also explained her decision wouldn't have changed because it was best for her daughter at the time.

Panettiere isn't the first person to have to make a decision around caring for her child and caring for herself, it's a common thing that many parents struggle with. You don't have to be a parent in recovery to have an idea of how difficult that decision is for someone. A common theme in mom groups online is the guilt that comes with taking time to care for yourself so you can properly care for your children, so having to make a decision like that on a larger scale is heartbreaking.

Addiction in America is a real problem, whether it be something harder like methamphetamine and opioids, or something that seems innocuous like "mommy wine culture." It's an issue that hundreds of thousands of people face a day, and sometimes it results in people giving up their children by choice or by force. No matter which way a parent comes to be without their child, it's difficult, so Panettiere sharing her story so publicly can only help others who are struggling with the decision.

Admitting that you're not in the place to take care of your child is powerful because you're saying "I love my child enough to not intentionally or unintentionally cause them harm due to my addiction. I love them enough to care for myself so I can show up how they need me." There's strength in that decision and if we as society can talk about that more, it could be life-changing for those struggling with addiction.


Panettiere pointed how publications would make it seem that she simply gave her child away as if there wasn't deep thought and heartbreak in the decision. But there shouldn't be stigma attached to a mother doing what's best for her child, even though there is, and with the stigma comes guilt. No parent should feel guilty for taking care of themselves, even if it means they have to step back from being an active parent.

No matter if you're a celebrity or a suburban parent that has difficulty maintaining sobriety, a healthy parent who visits when they can is better than one that lost the battle of addiction. Everyone wants to root for people to get sober, but we also have to stand behind them when they make the difficult decision to step away from parenting to put all of their focus on healing. Respecting the entire process may save lives and end stigmas.

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