Ben Affleck on depression, addiction and how sobriety has made him happier | Nightline

Ben Affleck strides into Xavier High School in New York with his signature high-octane energy he is fast talking funny as we head to the gym where the junior varsity basketball team is preparing for a playoff game Affleck has a new movie coming out called the way back it's about a group of young basketball players who need to believe in themselves and a struggling coach who needs faith to that he could overcome addiction and reclaim his life which one's me this one this is you oh okay here we go oh nice to see you again nice to see you again too look great I think you were 27 when we did our first interview you're now 47 I'm like I said you look the same I'm just quite visible 47 you can see a Hollywood star is ready to talk about the fault lines of addiction in his life I've been through I got sober when I was younger when I went in 2001 which I now look at it as a sort of a JV version of what really the problem is I'm sober for a couple of years and then I thought you know I want to just drink like a normal person and I want to have wine at dinner and so on and I and you know I was able to I was able to for about eight years but he says he learned that sooner or later your vulnerabilities can find you I started to drink more and more and more and it was really hard for me to accept that that meant I was an alcoholic I was I can just go back I was fine before you know I just need to take a break I just need to slow down I just need it I'm okay you know I mean this isn't me and I started drinking every day I come home from work and I start to drink and I just sit there drink don't pass out on the couch those years spent directly under the glare of the spotlight the spotlight that first landed on him more than 20 years ago there he was a new face lighting up Hollywood Ben Affleck and his childhood but a Matt Damon had written a little movie called Good Will Hunting and it won the Oscar and the Oscar goes to Ben Affleck connect in stage they were still just two guys from Boston in disbelief but it didn't take long for Affleck to become a certified star on the cover of all those magazines as a superhero in Batman an action hero and Armageddon and a Hollywood heartthrob and in person so well Reds so mischievous in my first interview he does an improv of Bill Clinton you got a feeling that he might just take you by the hand so what Diane you know we've got the biggest surplus in American history I created 22 million new jobs and he just he does he feels your pain little town go ho his career as a director of films like the town and Argo brought him a whole new dimension in Hollywood thank you thank you all very much kept a kind of balance as he married Jennifer Garner the beloved actress and had three children but as years went by there was rockiness in his marriage two times in the last three years he went to rehab always worried that his drinking was affecting the children at the center of his life I really don't want my children to pay for my son's right to be afraid for you or to be afraid for me which is one of the hard parts of being the child of an alcoholic do you think what if my dad gets drunk what if he does something stupid or if he ends up on TMZ you know and it's on my newsfeed and other kids did you watch this dislike I saw a little bit I saw a little bit of it so yes I guess I did watch some of it although not the whole whole thing I I know what it looks like to be drunk I don't need to watch anymore a relapse broadcast around the world and in that moment reliving a family history a family in which so many lives were devastated by addiction he was a little boy whose grandmother took her life amid alcohol and barbiturates his aunt had an addiction so did his father for me seeing my dad was just she was drunk every day and that was just life then as that got worse that was really really painful and I always said that'll never be me I'm never gonna do that I wish he had been sober during those four years but what he's taught me is how important it is for me to be sober now during these formative years for my kids he says his mother was his rock but as his family broke apart he vowed never to repeat it it was the hardest thing for you to be honest with yourself about that I was gonna get divorced that that I never thought I was gonna get divorced I didn't want to get divorced I didn't want to be a divorced person I really didn't want to be a split family with my children and it upset me because it meant I wasn't who I thought I was and that was so painful and so disappointing in myself and he says a wake-up call about the dad he is determined to be I took the last half of the year off and I just got to be dad drive him to school pick him up go to the swim meet you know just that's where the parenting happens it's in the cracks it's in the moments where there you're just taking them back from soccer and they say something profound or they talk about how they're really feeling about something and it's like that's where you get to be the parent that's the joy of it and that's what I don't want to miss he says with sobriety he can now understand more about the anxieties and the depression that have haunted him since the age of 26 I get depressed big antidepressants they're very helpful for me I've taken them 26 years old various different kinds I've switched and tried this and tried that sometimes they won't tell you about some awful side effect can you come back and say that why am i 60 pounds heavier and they go you put on a little weight you know he has a new appreciation of a healthy day he likes discipline routine starting with the gym in the morning then work he has just written a new screenplay with Matt Damon I'd like to find some sort of sense of meaning and purpose you know I was not raised religious I don't I'm not a very good Christian although I go to church with my kids because it was important to Jennifer and and now I go to and I like it quite a bit do you ever say to yourself maybe maybe I can be I can go back we can go back and reset time and have that family in the past again you know there are things that I would love to go back and change I have regrets I you know there I've made plenty of mistakes some big some small I wish I could go back time and change all kinds of things but I can't but what he can do now is join that new breed of Hollywood leading men showing a different kind of strength for family and sobriety Brad Pitt Bradley Cooper I got sober because of this guy and every day has been happier ever since Robert Downey proper town you and you know guys like I found you know like Bradley and and and you know Robert have been really helpful to me and and really supportive and they're wonderful men and with his new movie sending a message of hope and a reminder if you need help you are not alone my favorite scene in this movie instance a little bit of a spoiler is where I my character loses his job because it's really about consequences and you understand how desperate he is to not have to suffer those consequences and how painful that can be so here we are two interviews 20 years apart on the left the Boy Wonder on the right the 47 year old man looking at the new path ahead five years from now you want people to say Ben Affleck is five years from now Ben Affleck is sober and happy and sees his kids three and a half days a week and has made three or four movies that are interesting to him I directed to that he's hopefully proud of and is in a healthy stable loving committed relationship see in five years I really set myself up for that one didn't I better make it now our thanks to Diane hi everyone george stephanopolous here thanks for checking out the ABC news youtube channel if you'd like to get more video show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right over here to subscribe to our Channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts thanks for watching

Channel: ABC News

Views: 371,871

Rating: 4.8842106 out of 5

Keywords: Ben, Affleck, Jennifer, Garner, sobriety, addiction, depression, family, life, The, Way, Back, basketball, coach, actor, celebrity, movie, abc, abcnews, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-69141407

Id: QDEUhJiCCV4

Length: 9min 16sec (556 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 22 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/JohnnyBlackOps]

He did the right thing for everyone. For himself and the fans.

[u/leos-rdt]

I’ll never get over how wild it is to see how making that change has made him look so much more outwardly happier and healthier.

[u/Cbomb101]

Alchohole don't help with depression good job for getting of that shit.