Josh Brolin, 58, on Getting Sober: ‘I’m Having Way More Fun Now’

Josh Brolin, 58, remembers waking up on the sidewalk outside his house and considering how much more of his life he wanted to spend drunk.

“Drinking got boring in the end. I woke up on the sidewalk outside my house, yet again, and it felt like a fork in the road. Which way was I going to go for the rest of my life?” he told The Telegraph in an interview published Oct. 17.

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The Sicario and Avengers actor, who has been sober for 12 years, attends a recovery meeting on Zoom every day at 6 a.m.

“I love being sober. I’m having way more fun now than I ever did drinking, and I never end up in jail, which is a real bonus,” he said.

What Anthony Hopkins taught him

Brolin credits actor Anthony Hopkins with helping him see how he could put his anger and restless energy to use.

“I’m good friends with Tony Hopkins,” he said. “And he’s like me: edgy, angry, super-energized. He taught me that we can create profound things if we take care and use that energy in the right way. Or we can create pain and chaos, which is the default setting.”

Brolin published his memoir, From Under the Truck, in 2024. He writes an average of 2,500 words a day, according to The Telegraph. He also takes photographs and collects art.

Growing up, he felt pressure from his mother, Jane Cameron Agee, “to be a hard-drinking, fighting cowboy type, because that’s what she admired,” he said in the interview.

He began drinking at age 8, the newspaper reported. As a teenager in California, he belonged to a surf-punk crew whose members fought, used drugs and committed petty crimes. Early efforts to stop drinking included rehab and a halfway house, but the sobriety didn’t last.

When his mother visited him in juvenile detention, he recalled, she looked proud. “I was trapped in that persona of what she wanted me to be for a long, long time,” he said.

Brolin now lives in Montecito, California, with his wife, Kathryn, and their two daughters, who are 5 and 7.

“The marriage just gets better after 10 years, and my family is everything to me. My kids are always with me when I’m working,” he said.

He also shares two adult children, son Trevor, 38, and daughter Eden, with his first wife, actor Alice Adair. Eden, 32, an actor and musician, is expecting twin boys. 

“I’m so ready to be their grandad,” he said.

What a month without alcohol can do

Brolin has been sober for more than a decade, but even a month without alcohol may help you sleep better, lower your blood pressure and improve your mood, as reported in AARP’s story about what happens when you stop drinking.

People who drink daily should consult a health professional before quitting cold turkey, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, vice president for emergency medicine addiction services at Northwell Health, told AARP.

For more on why drinking can affect you differently later in life, read how alcohol affects your body as you age and what can help you cut back.