Denzel Washington is opening up about his previous drug and alcohol use, admitting he’s “done a lot of damage” to his physique.
The Oscar winner, 69, has been sober for nearly 10 years however obtained candid about his former vices within the Winter challenge of Esquire.
Washington mentioned 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 within the interview.
The “Gladiator II” actor defined, “I by no means obtained strung out on heroin. By no means obtained strung out on coke. By no means obtained strung out on arduous medication. I shot dope similar to they shot dope, however I by no means obtained 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 shared that he had an enormous wine cellar in his dwelling and sometimes blew by hundreds 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 mentioned.
“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 spouse, Pauletta, would usually ask him why he’d solely 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.”
Regardless of his frequent alcohol use, Washington mentioned he wouldn’t indulge whereas filming.
“I never drank while I was working or preparing. I would clean up, go back to work — I could do both,” the actor defined.
“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 mentioned he “wasn’t drinking” when he filmed the 2012 drama “Flight,” through which he performed 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 advised Esquire.
Washington give up consuming in Dec. 2014, shortly after his sixtieth birthday. Reflecting on his previous, the actor admitted, “I’ve done a lot of damage to the body. We’ll see. I’ve been clean.”
He’ll flip 70 on Dec. 28 and acknowledged that “this is the last chapter.”
Washington not too long ago introduced he could be retiring after his subsequent batch of movies.
“Things are opening up for me now — like being seventy. It’s real. And it’s okay,” he advised the publication. “This is the last chapter — if I get another thirty, what do I want to do? My mother made it to ninety-seven. I’m doing the best I can.”
Washington’s newest film, “Gladiator II,” hits theaters on Nov. 22.
