Baldwin gave a rare, candid interview discussing his "white-hot" cocaine addiction while living in Los Angeles in the 1980s. He's been sober since 1985.
Alec Baldwin recalled his “white-hot” cocaine addiction while living in Los Angeles in the 1980s, just ahead of celebrating 40 years of sobriety. Baldwin was speaking to musician Paul Anka and business tycoon Skip Bronson on their podcast, Our Way with Paul Anka and Skip Bronson.
Baldwin began the talk by admitting, “I don't discuss this a lot. I discuss it every now and then when it makes sense. Because, as I tell people, and you’ll appreciate this,” he told his hosts, “I was in Los Angeles in ’83, and I had a two-year, daily, white-hot problem.”
The 30 Rock actor then revealed that he’s coming up on a major sobriety milestone. “I'm 39 years sober,” Baldwin said. “I got sober February 23, 1985.”
But before that, Baldwin indulged at every opportunity. “Every day for two years, I think I snorted a line of cocaine from here to Saturn,” he joked. “Did one on the rings of Saturn, then we came home—we took it back home.”
While he admitted to snorting an excessive amount, Baldwin stipulated such abuse was common at the time. “Cocaine was like coffee back then,” he asserted. “Everybody was doing it all day long. So I did a lot of coke.”
Baldwin was able to stop before he was cast in his breakout roles in Working Girl, Beetlejuice, and Glengarry Glen Ross. However, giving up cocaine led him to begin abusing another, equally dangerous substance.
“I stopped [cocaine], and ’cause I stopped doing drugs, my drinking increased, which they tell you that’s going to happen, and that did happen,” Baldwin recalled. “I just started drinking.”
While he doesn’t miss his cocaine-fueled days, Baldwin did admit to Anka and Bronson that he misses alcohol.
“The thing I miss is drinking. I don’t miss drugs at all, but I do miss drinking,” Baldwin said. “I like to drink.”
Navigating sobriety comes with its own issues, but Baldwin says he’s gotten better at using more holistic methods of relaxation. “New York relaxes me, I walk around and I see aspects of it that I’ve never seen before,” Baldwin said.
He also enjoys meditation, but sometimes finds it hard to complete the task with his young children running around the house. “Meditating with seven children is like trying to play ping pong on the deck of an aircraft carrier,” he joked. “It’s a real pain in the ass, man.”
Baldwin is set to face trial in July over charges of involuntary manslaughter over the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021. The tragic incident occurred on the set of Rust, a low-budget western produced by and starring Baldwin, after a live round made its way into a prop firearm which Baldwin accidentally discharged, killing Hutchins and wounding the film’s director, Joel Souza.
Last month, the film’s armorer who supplied the live round, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
You can listen to Baldwin’s full Our Way interview here and check out a preview clip below, in which Baldwin details his celebrity friendships.
