Brad Pitt, now 49, talks openly about how he made a “conscious” choice to quit drugs after he realized he was squandering his potential. While he experimented with different drugs he favored marijuana and says he used it recreationally but felt that it was hindering him from reaching his full potential.
Pitt says, “For a long time I thought I did too much damage—drug damage. I was a bit of a drifter. A guy who felt he grew up in something of a vacuum and wanted to see things, wanted to be inspired. I followed that other thing. I spent years screwing off. But then I got burnt out and felt that I was wasting my opportunity.”
Pitt has been drug free for about ten years now after he had “an epiphany” and made “a decision not to squander his opportunities. He says, “It was a feeling of, ‘Get up.’ Because otherwise, what’s the point? I was hiding out from the celebrity thing. I was smoking way too much dope. I was sitting on the couch and just turning into a doughnut and I got really irritated with myself.”
Today, Pitt is living life to the fullest with Angelina Jolie and their six children. He says that his personal and professional life is now at an all-time (natural) high. “I have very few friends. I have a handful of close friends and I have my family,” he says, “I’m making things. I just haven’t known life to be any happier.”
Many would wonder, how at any point in his life, could Brad Pitt, of all people think he was squandering his life away? He is partners with the stunning and gorgeous Angelina Jolie, they have no money troubles, they have six kids, and they are celebrities. What more does he want?
Pitt didn’t fall prey to what commonly plagues some celebrities. According to Dr. Scott Teitelbaum, an Associate Professor and Vice Chair of the University of Florida psychiatry department and the Medical Director of Florida Recovery Center, “Some people who become famous and get put on a pedestal begin to think of themselves differently and lose their sense of humility. And this is something you can see with addicts, too. Famous or not, people in the midst of their addiction will behave in a narcissistic, selfish way: they’ll be anti-social and have a disregard for rules and regulations. But that is part of who they as an addict—not necessarily who they would be as a sober person. Then there are some people who are narcissists outside of their disease, who don’t need a drug or alcohol addiction to make them feel like the rules don’t apply to them—and yes, I have seen in this in many athletes and actors. Of course, you also have non-famous people who struggle with both.”
Fame and addiction increasingly intersect. Dr. Dale Archer, the medical director for psychiatric services at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital says, “Fame and addiction are definitely related. Those who are prone to addiction get a much higher high from things—whether it’s food, shopping, gambling or fame—which means it [the behavior or situation] will trigger cravings.”
The point is that Pitt knew what he had and he did what he needed to do to preserve it. He never justified that it was only weed. He realized that he probably had a good case of amotivational syndrome and couldn’t stand the way he felt. Kudos to Brad!
