Denzel Washington has revealed details about his past struggles with drug and alcohol use, admitting to having “done a lot of damage” to his body.
In an interview for Esquire’s Winter issue, the Oscar winner, 69, now nearly a decade sober, said his unhealthy habits began with wine.
“Wine is very tricky. It’s very slow. It ain’t like, boom, all of a sudden,” he shared in the interview.
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The “Gladiator II” actor explained, “I never got strung out on heroin. Never got strung out on coke. Never got strung out on hard drugs. I shot dope just like they shot dope, but I never got strung out.
“And I never got strung out on liquor. I had this ideal idea of wine tastings and all that — which is what it was at first. And that’s a very subtle thing. I mean, I drank the best.”
Washington revealed that he once had a massive wine cellar in his home and frequently spent thousands of dollars on expensive bottles.
“I learned to drink the best. So I’m gonna drink my ’61s and my ’82s and whatever we had. Wine was my thing, and now I was popping $4,000 bottles just because that’s what was left,” he said.
“And then later in those years I’d call Gil Turner’s Fine Wines & Spirits on Sunset Boulevard and say, ‘Send me two bottles, the best of this or that.’”
His wife, Pauletta, would often ask him why he’d only order two bottles at a time, to which he replied, “‘Because if I order more, I’ll drink more.’ So I kept it to two bottles, and I would drink them both over the course of the day.”
He admitted to frequent alcohol use in the past but stated he refrained from drinking while filming.
“I never drank while I was working or preparing. I would clean up, go back to work — I could do both,” the actor explained.
“However many months of shooting, bang, it’s time to go. Then, boom. Three months of wine, then time to go back to work.”
The “Glory” star said he “wasn’t drinking” when he filmed the 2012 drama “Flight,” in which he played an alcoholic pilot.
“I’m sure I did as soon as I finished. That was getting toward the end of the drinking, but I knew a lot about waking up and looking around, not knowing what happened,” he told Esquire.
Washington quit drinking in December 2014, shortly after his 60th birthday.
Reflecting on his journey, he admitted, “I’ve done a lot of damage to the body. We’ll see. I’ve been clean.”
As he approaches his 70th birthday on December 28, the actor has described this stage of his life as “the last chapter.”
Washington recently announced plans to retire after completing his upcoming slate of films. His latest movie, “Gladiator II,” hits theaters on November 22.
