Sean Kanan is opening up about getting sober.
The 58-year-old The Bold & The Beautiful star, who has portrayd Deacon Sharpe on the series since 2000, spoke out about what motivated him to quit drinking almost five years ago.
During a conversation with People, Sean said that his wife Michele Kanan made a plea that hit him “like a lightning bolt.”
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“She said to me at one point, ‘I have put my heart and everything into this relationship. Please tell me that I didn’t back the wrong horse,’” he said.
“I had been trying for a very long time to get sober, and I had intermittent periods of success followed by fairly catastrophic setbacks, let’s say. But when I heard that, I don’t know. The skies parted,” he went on to explain.
“It set something in motion that was different than everything before.”
Sean says the thought of losing Michele was what he needed to commit to his sobriety.
“I believe there’s two forces in the universe that create profound and lasting change in human beings, and that’s fear and love. I was motivated by both,” he told the outlet.
“I was in fear of losing the thing that I loved the most, which was Michele, and that was the ultimate catalyst that finally got me to get it together.”
In the same interview, Michele clarified that she wasn’t giving Sean an “ultimatum,” but a “safe space” to reflect.
“I told him, ‘Look, this is our life together, and it’s either going to be painful and you’re going to watch me slowly die because I love you, and I see that you’re hurting yourself for some reason that I can’t fix, and that’s going to slowly kill me as well. So, we’re in it together. Whatever you want to do, the ball is in your court,’” she explained.
Sean said that sobriety has had “a profound effect” on his life.
“Somebody said something to me once, and it sounds so simple, ‘Would you give up one thing to have everything?’ I gave up this one thing, and I have everything. I mean, I truly have everything. That doesn’t mean that I don’t strive for more, but my life is amazing. Probably the most incredible part about [giving up alcohol], aside from my relationship with Michele, is that I don’t miss it. It’s not like I’m white knuckling it and I’m hanging on,” he said.
“I attribute it to God, to my relationship with the Almighty that there has been something that has been fundamentally removed from me that I didn’t ever think could be removed. I also attribute a lot of it to my love and relationship with Michele.”
The couple married in 2012. Find out which other stars are sober in Hollywood.
