Celebrity culture has long romanticized champagne, late nights and drinking as part of the lifestyle. But for many stars, giving up alcohol became a personal choice that changed their lives. Some battled addiction, while others realized drinking was affecting their mental health, relationships or overall well-being. Here are 15 celebrities who quit alcohol and the surprising reasons behind their decisions.
Anthony Hopkins: 50 Years Without a Drink
Anthony Hopkins has one of the longest sobriety streaks in Hollywood. He quit drinking in December 1975, right after a frightening blackout behind the wheel. Anthony has said he realized he could have killed himself or someone else that night. He called Alcoholics Anonymous soon after and never touched alcohol again.
In December 2025, Hopkins marked 50 years sober. He shared a message urging anyone struggling with drinking to choose life and get help. His acting career, meanwhile, only grew from there. He went on to win Oscars for “The Silence of the Lambs” and “The Father,” decades after he put the bottle down.
These days, at 88, Hopkins is still working steadily. He’s writing his own memoir, which he’s described as a strange process of digging back through decades of memory, and his wife, Stella, is separately putting together a documentary about his life. On screen, he’s set to appear in “Wife & Dog,” a black comedy from director Guy Ritchie alongside Benedict Cumberbatch and Rosamund Pike, due out in October 2026.
Bradley Cooper: Getting Clean Before His Best Work
Bradley Cooper was 29 when he decided to quit drinking and using drugs for good. In a 2013 GQ interview, he admitted that his substance use had started affecting his work and that he feared continuing down that path would ruin his life.
Getting sober gave Cooper a new sense of focus. He became more present and was able to put more energy into his acting career, eventually taking on bigger and more demanding roles. The change came before a remarkable run of films that helped turn him into one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including “The Hangover,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” “American Hustle” and “American Sniper.”
His sobriety also gave him a deeply personal connection to his role in “A Star Is Born.” Cooper played Jackson Maine, a successful musician whose battle with alcohol and drugs begins to destroy his career and relationship. Having faced his own struggles with addiction, Cooper brought a level of personal understanding to the character. He also took on much more than acting, directing the film, co-writing and producing it, while learning to sing and play guitar for the role.
Robert Downey Jr.: From Rock Bottom to Iron Man
For a long time, addiction looked like it might define Robert Downey Jr.’s entire career. His drug and alcohol problems led to arrests, failed stints in rehab and even a prison sentence. By the early 2000s, nobody was betting on his comeback.
Then, in the early 2000s, everything shifted. Downey has spoken openly about the moment he decided he had to stop, as well as the role that treatment, support and a change in his surroundings played in his recovery.
What followed was one of Hollywood’s most-talked-about turnarounds. Downey returned to major film roles and eventually became Iron Man, helping build the Marvel universe into a global franchise and becoming one of the highest-paid actors alive. His recovery and his career success are impossible to separate.
Downey isn’t slowing down either. He won his first Oscar for “Oppenheimer” and made his Broadway debut in “McNeal.” Now he’s stepping back into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this time as the villain Doctor Doom in “Avengers: Doomsday,” set for 2026, with “Avengers: Secret Wars” to follow in 2027.
Elton John: 36 Years and Counting
Elton John has been sober since 1990, making his recovery one of the longest in the music industry. He has openly talked about how drugs and alcohol once took over his life. Getting sober helped him repair relationships and leave behind the heavy drinking and drug use that had become part of his early years of fame.
In July 2026, John celebrated 36 years without a drink. He posted a photo raising a glass of his own alcohol-free sparkling wine, saying he was grateful for every day. He and his husband, David Furnish, launched Elton John Zero, a zero-percent-alcohol sparkling wine, earlier in 2026, turning his sobriety into an actual product on shelves.
Rob Lowe: A Phone Call He Ignored
Rob Lowe remembers the exact moment that pushed him toward recovery. He has said that his path to sobriety was a gradual decision, not a single dramatic event, though there were warning signs along the way, including the fallout from a 1988 scandal involving a leaked sex tape. But the real breaking point came from his family.
In 1990, Lowe was drinking heavily while his mother kept trying to call him. His grandfather had just had a heart attack. Lowe was too drunk to pick up. That was the moment he couldn’t ignore. He later told PEOPLE that the experience became his final wake-up call. He checked into Sierra Tucson for treatment and has stayed sober ever since.
More than three decades later, he still talks openly about recovery while keeping up a full career in TV and film. His story took a personal turn when his son, John Owen Lowe, began his own sobriety journey, something Lowe has said means a lot to share with him.
Daniel Radcliffe: Trading Alcohol for the Gym
Daniel Radcliffe’s drinking years came at an odd time in his life. He grew up famous, playing Harry Potter before he was even an adult. Once the franchise ended, he struggled to figure out who he was outside the role that had defined his whole childhood.
He’s said alcohol became his way of coping with self-consciousness and discomfort. He quit drinking in 2012. More than 10 years later, he’s found a new outlet for that same intensity: exercise.
In a 2026 interview with WSJ. Magazine, Radcliffe called himself a “fitness freak” and said he’d basically redirected his addictive tendencies toward the gym. He’s careful to say it’s not a replacement addiction, just a healthier place to put that same drive. These days, he’s a father with a career spanning theater, film and TV, no longer defined by the boy wizard who made him famous.
Tom Holland: Turning Dry January Into a Business
Tom Holland’s sobriety started with something a lot of people try casually: Dry January. In early 2022, the “Spider-Man” actor decided to skip alcohol for a month. It turned out to be a lot harder than he expected, which told him just how much drinking had become part of his routine.
He kept going into February, then March, then challenged himself to stay alcohol-free for six months. By June, he said he genuinely felt better. In a 2024 Forbes interview, Holland described his first sober year as brutal. He also said having a nonalcoholic beer on hand back then might have made things easier, which is part of why he launched his own alcohol-free beer brand, Bero, that same year.
By 2026, he was crediting sobriety with helping his career take off, and Bero has continued expanding as a real business alongside his acting work. His story stands out because quitting drinking didn’t just change his personal life. It became the foundation of a business he now runs on the side.
Jessica Simpson: Realizing Alcohol Wasn’t Helping
Jessica Simpson stopped drinking on Nov. 1, 2017. For years, she kept the emotional side of that decision mostly private. That changed in 2026, when she started weaving it into her music.
While debuting her song “Give It All Away” at a June 2026 concert, Jessica Simpson reflected on eight years of sobriety and how much her life had changed since giving up alcohol. She explained that drinking never really took away her pain. Instead, it often left her feeling worse and made it harder to deal with what she was going through.
Simpson has previously pointed to Halloween in 2017 as a major turning point. She said she looked at photos from that night and realized she was not fully present for her children. That moment pushed her to take a serious look at her drinking and begin a different path.
Her recovery has also been tied to her wider personal life and career. Simpson has spoken about learning to face difficult emotions without using alcohol to escape them, while continuing to work as a singer, actress, designer and businesswoman.
Rather than presenting sobriety as a perfect transformation, she has described it as an ongoing process. That honesty has made her story especially relatable: getting sober did not mean every problem disappeared, but it gave her a clearer way to face them.
Eminem: 18 Years Sober
Eminem has stayed sober since April 2008. His recovery followed a near-fatal overdose on methadone in December 2007, the end result of years struggling with prescription drugs and substance abuse.
In April 2026, he quietly marked 18 years sober with a photo of his recovery coin on Instagram. It was a small gesture, but a meaningful one. Eminem’s sobriety has now lasted through some major changes in his personal life. His mother, Debbie Nelson, died in December 2024 at age 69 after complications from lung cancer.
Their relationship had been difficult for years and became a recurring subject in his music. But over time, Eminem also took steps to make peace with their past. In his 2013 song “Headlights,” he apologized for some of the harsh things he had said about her in earlier songs.
Despite everything that came with his fame and personal life, Eminem has remained sober for years. He continues to make music and perform, showing how different his life and career look from the period when addiction nearly derailed both.
John Goodman: When Drinking Became a Matter of Life or Death
John Goodman spent about 30 years struggling with alcohol before finally entering rehab in 2007. By then, drinking was no longer something he could easily control. After completing treatment at Promises Treatment Center in Malibu, Goodman said he had taken the steps needed to stay sober for the rest of his life.
In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, Goodman said his drinking had become increasingly damaging and was affecting the people around him. He also admitted that alcohol was hurting his work, particularly his temperament, memory and depression. At one point, he described his drinking as a matter of “life or death.”
Sobriety also changed how Goodman experienced everyday life. He told CBS that he had spent years missing out on simple moments such as spending time with his wife and walking his dogs. “If I don’t pick up that first drink, I’m fine,” he said, describing his approach to staying sober.
His recovery eventually became part of a much bigger lifestyle change. Goodman also worked on his eating habits and exercise, later losing around 200 pounds after once weighing close to 400 pounds. In recent years, he has continued acting while maintaining the healthier routine he built after giving up alcohol.
Gary Oldman: When Drinking Nearly Took Everything
Gary Oldman has described himself as a “functioning alcoholic” for the first two decades of his adult life. In a 2021 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he explained that he could still work and remember his lines, which made him believe he was getting away with his drinking.
Oldman also admitted that he had romanticized drinking because many of the artists he admired had struggled with alcohol or drugs. He’s spoken about the physical toll in stark terms, describing waking up with his tongue black and needing a drink just to function.
His drinking eventually led to two stints in rehab. By 2021, Oldman said he had been sober for nearly 24 years and described his recovery as a major part of why he was still here. More recently, he has been even more direct about what might have happened had he continued drinking. In a 2025 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he reflected on 28 years of sobriety and said there was a point when he didn’t think he could’ve gone 28 seconds without a drink.
His post-recovery career has included major roles in “The Dark Knight,” the “Harry Potter” films and “Darkest Hour,” for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Drew Barrymore: When Her Therapist Walked Away
Drew Barrymore’s struggles with addiction began in childhood, but alcohol became a serious problem again after her 2016 divorce from Will Kopelman. She later admitted that drinking had become a way to cope with the difficult period, even while she continued working and raising her children.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, she said the situation became so serious that her longtime therapist, Barry Michels, eventually told her, “I can’t do this anymore.” Michels had worked with Barrymore for about a decade but stopped treating her because her drinking had become a self-destructive pattern that was getting in the way of therapy.
Barrymore said the decision forced her to face how much alcohol had taken over. She eventually stopped drinking in 2019, around the time she was preparing to launch “The Drew Barrymore Show.” She has said she knew she needed to be in a clear state of mind for the new chapter, which became an important part of rebuilding her life and career.
Anna Faris: A Recent, Still Unfolding Story
During an August 2026 appearance on Chelsea Handler’s “Dear Chelsea” podcast, Faris said she’d noticed a clear link between her drinking and her depression. She also described alcohol as feeding a pattern of self-sabotage.
She has called sobriety one of the many gifts that came from stepping away from drinking, and said it changed how she sees both herself and her career. The timing lines up with an interesting professional moment, too.
Faris returned to “Scary Movie” in 2026, stepping back into the role of Cindy Campbell more than 20 years after the original film helped launch her comedy career. The comeback brought her back together with Regina Hall and Marlon and Shawn Wayans, and Faris described the experience as “healing.” She has also spoken about feeling more comfortable in her career now, rather than worrying as much about how Hollywood viewed her.
Adam Scott: No Rock Bottom, Just a Quiet Shift
Adam Scott’s path looks nothing like Anthony Hopkins’ or Robert Downey Jr.’s. The “Parks and Recreation” and “Severance” actor revealed in August 2026 that he hadn’t had a drink in about 12 years. There was no rehab, no dramatic intervention, no public breaking point.
On Jake Shane’s “Therapuss” podcast, Scott explained he was never much of a drinker to begin with. He just gradually phased it out. He also mentioned feeling unusually healthy lately, saying he hadn’t been sick in two years, all while continuing to star in “Severance,” one of the most talked-about shows on television right now.
Dax Shepard: Proof That Recovery Isn’t a Straight Line
Dax Shepard has been more open than most about how messy recovery can actually be. He first got sober after years battling alcohol and drugs. Then, in 2020, after 16 years clean, he revealed on his “Armchair Expert” podcast that he’d relapsed.
The relapse involved prescription pain medication, taken after injuries from a motorcycle accident. Shepard admitted he’d been hiding his drug use from the people closest to him, including his wife, Kristen Bell.
Instead of keeping it quiet, he talked about it publicly, and that choice changed how a lot of people think about celebrity sobriety. Shepard never presented recovery as something permanent and unshakable. He showed that someone can have years of sobriety behind them and still face a new crisis, which might be the most honest part of his story.
What Sobriety Gave Them Back
Fifteen celebrities, 15 different journeys to sobriety. Some quit drinking after addiction began affecting their careers and relationships. Others simply reached a point where alcohol no longer fit the life they wanted.
For many of these celebrities, sobriety opened the door to a fuller life. They were able to focus on their careers, relationships, families and personal goals without alcohol getting in the way. In the end, giving up drinking gave them more time and space to enjoy the things that mattered most.
