Noughties actor Zach Braff has revealed he suffered a secret binge drinking battle and would “drink to black out”.
The star is known for playing Michael “J.D.” Dorian in sitcom Scrubs and rose to fame over two decades ago.
Speaking for the first time about his issues with alcohol, Zach admitted he suffered some “embarrassing” moments.
Zach appeared on a new episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast this week, where host Dax said: “The thing I’ve been curious about you for 25 years is, what’s your relationship with alcohol and drugs?
“Was there ever dicey periods?”
Admitting that no one has ever asked him that, Zach – who was forced to deny he was dating a chatbot earlier this week – replied: “I definitely had binge drinking problems in my life.
“My problem with alcohol was never, ‘Oh, I want to drink at noon’, ever.
“So I rationalised that just drinking a f*** ton on a Saturday night until you blacked out wasn’t an alcohol problem.”
Dax replies: “Right, right. Also, you have depression and anxiety?”
“Yeah, anxiety – the works…. I definitely have panic attacks, and OCD, all that stuff,” said Zach, who was most recently in a relationship with Florence Pugh, until their 2022 split.
Continuing that he didn’t dabble too much in drugs, Zach said that there was a time where his relationship with alcohol became overly strained.
“I think I had some embarrassing experiences where I was just drinking to much, and they accumulated.”
Zach, who is currently starring in the reboot of Scrubs, went on to say that he tried to go a month without alcohol to see the difference it would make, after being inspired by a podcast.
Admitting the positive impact it had on his mental health, Zach said: “Once I’d flushed the depressant out of my body I was feeling lighter, I was feeling happier.
“Out of curiosity I ended up doing 13 months, totally no booze.”
Zach then revealed that after over a year sober, he has incorporated alcohol back into his lifestyle – without taking it too far.
He said: “It isn’t about, you’re going to give up alcohol forever, I drink wine maybe once a week – at dinner with friends, socially.
“I don’t get hammered anymore, because I just didn’t like myself like that.”
This story originally appeared on The U.S. Sun and is republished here with permission.