The Academy Award-winning actor Anthony Hopkins took to Instagram this week to celebrate 45 years of sobriety with a powerful video message.
In his Instagram video, the “Westworld” actor reflected about how difficult this past year has been while also opening up about the “wakeup call” that led him to turn his life around nearly half a century ago.
“Hello everyone. Good morning. Well, new year is coming. It’s been a tough year, full of grief and sadness for many, many, many people. But 45 years ago today, I had a wake-up call,” said Hopkins, adding that at that time, he was “heading for disaster.”
“Drinking myself to death,” the Silence Of The Lambs star said. “I’m not preaching, but I got a message, a little thought that said, ‘Do you want to live or die?’ and I said, ‘I want to live.’ And suddenly the relief came, and my life has been amazing, and I may have off days and little bits of doubt, and all that, but all in all, I say hang in there.”
Hopkins went on to encourage others who may be struggling right now to hang in there.
“Today is the tomorrow you were so worried about yesterday,” he said, specifically telling “young people” not to “give up.”
“Just keep in there, just keep fighting. Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid,” Hopkins concluded. “That’s sustained me through my life. And that’s all I’ve got to say, and happy new year. This is going to be the best year. Thank you.”
Hopkins, who turned 83 on New Year’s Eve, has long been open about his struggles with alcoholism, often crediting Christianity with helping him to get sober.
“I believe that we are capable of so much,” he said during a speech in 2018 for the LEAP Foundation. “From my own life, I still cannot believe that my life is what it is because I should have died in Wales, drunk or something like that.”
“We can talk ourselves into death or we can talk ourselves into the best life we’ve ever lived,” Hopkins added. “None of it was a mistake. It was all a destiny.”
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