The rich, the famous … the non-drinkers?

by Victoria B., posted in Addictions, Alcohol Abuse

I am surprised to learn that there are many famous people who don’t drink alcohol — or never tried it. These celebs are not sober because they suffered from alcoholism or drug addiction – they were just never interested.  A few names you might know: Abraham Lincoln, Jennifer Lopez, Donald Trump, Dane Cook, Jennifer Hudson, Penn (from Penn & Teller), Jennifer Lawrence and I can go on.

Non Alcoholic large list
Here is a larger list of teetotalers you can browse.

There are much more people, in the spotlight, who have abused drugs or alcohol in the past. Their sobriety quotes can be relatable or downright inspiring.

Buzz Aldrin

He became famous as one of the first astronauts to walk on the moon. Before his fame, he was just a pilot. Buzz found he was unprepared for the media storm that was about to hit him. After the Apollo 11 mission, his life became filled with speaking engagements, publicity, and the spotlight. He started drinking more and realized he had a problem, went to a recovery clinic, and got treated. He openly praises these treatment programs, saying: “I think recovery organizations are essential. I still participate in that because I enjoy the sharing that takes place and the friendship.” Having been sober for over three decades, Buzz still remembers his battle with alcohol: “It’s been one of the greatest challenges that ever came along in my life; it was one of the more difficult things to do.”

Robert Downey Jr.

He is a well-known actor whose movies such as Iron Man, The Avengers, and Sherlock Holmes have been seen by millions. Despite his first successes with Less Than Zero and Natural Born Killers, he started to abuse drugs. Between 1996 and 2002, he was regularly arrested on drugs charges. When asked about his addiction, he said, “It’s like I have a loaded gun in my mouth, and I like the taste of metal.” He now says that he has found success after his addiction through the support of his family, friends, and colleagues in the film industry. He said, “The lesson is that you can still make mistakes and be forgiven.”

Taylor Swift

This pop icon is in the “hardly ever drank” non-drinking crowd. It’s nice that someone so famous is also a good role model. Some of her quotes include “I remember seeing girls crying in the bathroom every Monday night about what they did at a party that weekend. I never wanted to be that girl”. Another quote “If I want to storm out of the house and go to a club and get drunk and take my clothes off and run naked through Nashville, I can do that. I just really would rather not. It’s as simple as that”. Very cool.

Just say no to drugs
Many might have forgotten the famous quote “Just say no to drugs”.

Ringo Starr

He was the drummer of the phenomenally successful Beatles, and for a period of around 20 years, he took a wide variety of drugs and drank a lot of alcohol. “I didn’t work or do anything,” he once said. “I wouldn’t go out because you’d have to be in the car for 40 minutes without a drink.” However, he realized: “that’s all drugs and alcohol do; they cut off your emotions in the end.” As a result, he started getting sober, and he now enjoys a successful career where he tours with his band.

Rob Lowe

He is another actor who ended up as an alcoholic. His career has had its ups and downs, and he is currently enjoying a long line of successful TV shows. He gained notoriety due to his recklessness and hedonistic lifestyle, particularly when he was caught in bed with a 16-year-old girl. However, he turned his life around and said, “Sobriety was the greatest gift I ever gave myself. I don’t put it on a platform. I don’t campaign for it. It’s just something that works for me. It enabled me to really connect with another human being my wife, Sheryl-which I was never able to do before.”

George Clooney

He is famous for his blockbuster movies. He revealed that he’s a drinker and has tried cocaine. More specifically, he reflected on his excessive alcohol consumption and added: “I drink at times too much. I do enjoy drinking, and there have been times in my life when it’s crossed the line from being fun to having to drink late at night for absolutely no reason. So what I do is, I stop.” Later in that interview, he admitted he had tried cocaine in the past, but didn’t like it: “I didn’t have an issue with it. I’m not a big druggie, not at all. Blow is absolutely a nonstarter.” I guess the jury is still out on that.

If you are a person who doesn’t drink, it is clear that you are not alone. Non-alcoholic people who don’t drink are not weird. In fact, not drinking is becoming more fashionable as a healthy lifestyle. When I was drinking, I really thought that only freaky people “took a pass” on drugs and alcohol. Too bad for me, because the only freak was me ….because I was not able to maintain any dignity or composure under the influence.

 

24 thoughts on “The rich, the famous … the non-drinkers?”

  1. I sometimes think people drink more because they worry about what others will think if they don’t…when the reality is that hardly anyone gives it a second thought at all. It tends to be a much bigger deal in your head!

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  2. Great article! One day non drinking will be way cooler than drinking. But who cares, you have to do what feels right for your body and mind. For me not drinking is a way better lifestyle. Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed reading your article.

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  3. There is an increase in backstage AA meetings amongst the famous sober bands/musicians. A relative of mine was asked to lead one recently and he’ll be doing more in the future. My take on this? Having a meeting in which you are surrounded by people on your payroll, people too afraid to confront you with the truth, is a bad idea. There are some famous people who actually go to meetings with the public. They’re closed meetings but at least you’re with ex-cons, the homeless, businessmen, and all walks of life. I’ve been to one where an actor showed up. No one said anything. He was shown the same anonymity and respect as everyone else. I believe there’s more honesty in a setting where everyone isn’t friends.

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  4. At one point in time I was a heavy drinker. I started drinking in high school. Mainly because it’s what my friends were doing. As I got older my drinking was mainly to escape. Soon it wasn’t enough and I needed to drink more which eventually led me to try drugs. I’m happy to be sober now it is still somewhat a struggle. But I love who I am sober.

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  7. I remember in my 20’s I was at a party and was talking to someone and they told me they didn’t drink. I remember being shocked. It’s not like I was ever a big drinker but it really struck me that someone just didn’t want to because it might not be a good idea and not because they were an addict. I had recently graduated college so I probably hadn’t shed that group think party mentality yet (which in retrospect I had and didn’t even know it – stupid). Another example of how youth is wasted on the young I guess?

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  9. I enjoyed hearing Robert Downey Jr. Being reflective about the disease. I honestly have a tough time calling a disease. I’m not saying it isn’t but it’s kind of like being a obese and not being able to not eat. People, including myself see it differently then having a pneumonia or leukemia.
    I could relate to his analogy of comparing it to likening the taste of metal and pointing a gun barrel in your mouth. I see my addiction like Godzilla or The terminator. It’s never satisfied and IT WILL NOT STOP UNTIL IM DEAD.
    I’m not sure how I come across to people in general because I tend to be white open and probably to transparent. I think of it though not in a way of poor me because of my lows or look at me because of my highs. Rather I want to be open and connect to people not from a ego but a place deep inside were we know

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      1. Yah I hear yah. I see things like that in a way as being a sprinkle on top of the ice cream cone. It may make one person like it and another not but it really doesn’t change the ice cream to much.
        I find, for myself, that if I focus my attention on the light instead of the dark I see the light regardless of whether it’s day or night.
        I totally get my feathers ruffled over small shit too so I ain’t any better.
        I got hit by a car today and I’m the ER waiting to be seen. Part of me wants to feel sorry for myself and the other part wants to be above it all and not worry if fret. I imagine both of those voices serve me and maybe it’s my journey to learn how to listen to them in a way that isn’t hurting me but helping me.

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      3. I totally relate to what you say. I’ve done a lot research. You can come at it from a societal standpoint a religious, spiritual and anatomical. I’ve done a lot of exploring both in study and looking at myself. The biggest gains we can make on addiction is exposing it and how we all are addicted on one or another and seeing that in us will take away the stigma in others.
        There is area in the midbrain called the Limbic system and it experiences its genesis in our childhood. It is the servo system our subconscious is locked into and were we REACT to life. Learning how to respond to life is a process of NEUROPLASTY (repair) of the Limbic System which requires certain tools. The Frontal is our conscious thinking. That’s were we feel shame, guilt and remorse and the area that we punish with prison but the areas that is the criminal or the culprit is The Limbic System and that regulatory mechanism sleeps under our conscious thinking in our subconscious and it kicks in under certain situations triggered from our childhood that we experience in our adult life. It literally takes over and completely drowns out the frontal navigation of shame, guilt and remorse.
        That’s why someone can be asked in a jail cell “why did you do that” and they look down at their feet feeling shame, guilt and remorse from there frontal lobe and say “I don’t know”. And they honestly know why because the frontal of conscious thought didn’t do it. The Limbic System did, and that is asleep as the conscious thought feels helpless.

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    2. where we all connect down deep below the ego.
      I’m not knocking obesity or any other issues that relate to a addictive nature. I actually think we as America are all addicted in different way. We as a society though look up to some addictions as having character, strength and discipline when in the light of the behavior up close and personal you can see how the behavior is a way to cover up something they don’t like or fear about them self.
      Politics is such a display of that and we as a country divide ourselves over what we think is a good addiction and what is a bad addiction.
      We’re as if we gave up on the good or bad thought process and looked at what the behavior is covering up we could find a way to treat what’s injured in our country instead of putting a bandiade of good or bad on top of the symptom of something coming from a place much deeper then what we see on the surface.

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      1. The substance abuse problems like drug addiction and alcoholism are much easier for me to understand. Behavioral addictions like food, gambling, shopping and sex seem difficult to define. I will take guidance from experts on that. What about good addictions? What is the fine line between habit and problem? I don’t know. When something starts causing problems in your life, if starts to become a problem, itself.

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  10. I don’t look at it in a sense of what cause a problem and what doesn’t as defining addiction. That’s just me, I’m not in right. I know from personal experience what looks like it is good or not a problem from the outside or people not directly involved with someone may be the tool they use to cover the pain which is what, to me, addiction is about. It’s behavior we do to feel better about how we see ourself as being broken.
    We want to put good on top of our bad and they both are figments of how we perceive ourself. It is iur perception that is broken and no matter we do to fix ourself, our perception is the problem and the problem can’t fix the problem it only finds s new way to invent the problem so that it’s not looked at as bad but j stead good. They both are band aides that do nothing to treat the problem they only cover it up.
    That is my view of it. Again I’m not saying I’m right but if anyone wants to use acronyms of good and bad it doesn’t solve anything. Good and bad are the problem because of how we perceive them. Our thoughts of good and bad are the making for the heaven and the hell we live in. It’s finding a way to not condemn or validate with either that we can find a peace beyond any understanding

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    1. Sometimes we glorify someone for not drinking or never starting and we put on a pedestal and over look the addictive behavior they own but use a different source then alcohol or drugs as a coping mechanism. All addiction is, is the use of a endogenous substance, person or place to deal with a life in a way we can feel safe.
      Look at some of the people on the list and realize they haven’t to terms with addiction but rather found a socially acceptable addiction to replace alcohol or drugs with.

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      1. Makes perfect sense… Yes we do enable one another by creating a social niche. I heard once: ‘People aren’t sad because they drink. They drink because they’re sad!’ So like-wise, if we could replace habitual behavior with more positive community activity, then just maybe people could fight for a better existance; but not the way things are now. Reality looks ugly to a drunk, just as drunks look ugly to solber people. I only know the world would improve mega-fold without this aweful war on drugs. They need help, not persecution…

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