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Time continues to prove that no idol is without flaws. Denzel Washington revealed that he struggled with alcohol abuse for much of his career.
The esteemed actor was recently profiled Esquire Magazine. The film chronicles his life as a young man in Mount Vernon, New York to his beginnings as a budding actor. This piece does a wonderful job of allowing Denzel Washington to tell his story in his own words. When discussing his highly controversial loss to Kevin Spacey at the 2000 Academy Awards for Best Actor (Denzel was nominated for Typhoon) says he went home and drank. Denzel admits that the loss left him bitter and this was his way of throwing his own pity party.
He went on to detail how his love of wine eventually became a very bad habit. “Wine is very difficult. It's too slow. It's not like, antenna, suddenly. And part of it was that we built this big house in 1999 with a ten-thousand-bottle cellar, and I learned to drink the best,” he explained. When the cellar finally got thin, he would call a local store to personally deliver a couple of bottles to his house. When asked by his wife why he would only buy two at a time, he revealed that this was his way of limiting himself. “Because if I order more, I'll drink more. So I kept it in two bottles and would drink both during the day.”
Although he drank heavily, he says he never let it interfere with his profession. “I never drank while working or getting ready. I was cleaning, going back to work — I could do both,” she explained. “As many months of filming, bang, it's time to leave. Then, antenna.Three months of wine and then time to get back to work.” Luckily Denzel Washington saw the error of his ways then and kicked the habit. He has been clean ever since and will mark ten years of sobriety in December.
You can read Denzel Washington's story at Esquire Magazine here.
