Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I should’ve died drunk in Wales
Anthony Hopkins spent 60s ‘in coma’ until booze craving ended at AA chat
SIR Anthony Hopkins has revealed how being an alcoholic left him “disgusted, busted and not to be trusted”.
The Silence of the Lambs star frankly admitted he was very difficult to work with as he was usually hungover.
He said: “I still cannot believe that my life is what it is because I should have died in Wales, drunk or something like that.”
He said the turning point came in 1975 at an Alco- holics Anonymous meeting. A woman asked him, “Why don’t you just trust God?” And the craving to drink was taken from him “never to return”, he told students in Los Angeles.
The Oscar winner, 80, struggled with drink for two decades and spent the 1960s “in a coma”. He added: “That’s what you do in theatre, you drink. But I was very difficult to work with as I was usually hungover.
“I believe that we are capable of so much. We can talk ourselves into death or we can talk ourselves into the best life we’ve ever lived. None of it was a mistake. It was all a destiny.”
Hopkins opened up to 500 UCLA students in Los Angeles as part of a LEAP – Leadership, Excellence and Accelerating Your Potential – conference.
He previously admitted he’d drink up to eight pints a night before going sober.
The twice-divorced dad of one, now living in Malibu with third wife, actress Stella Arroyave, 62, added: “If you chase the money, it’s not gonna work. And if you chase success, it’s not gonna work.
“You chase whatever you want to be but live as if it is happening now. Act as if you’re already there, and it’ll fall into place.”