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Radcliffe talks of alcohol hell

Daniel Radcliffe: Talks of battle with alcohol
Daniel Radcliffe: Talks of battle with alcohol

Daniel Radcliffe has said that at one time he ‘blacked’ out almost every time he drank alcohol.

The Harry Potter star, who has been teetotal since 2010, admitted that his drinking habits were leading him down a dark street. The 22-year-old said in the interview with Shortlist magazine that his public behaviour under the influence was such that he started drinking at home and became “a recluse at 20”.

Radcliffe revealed that his life went off the rails for a while after his 18th birthday when he was filming Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. After a wild period of whisky drinking and hard partying, the actor resolved to kick the habit and quit alcohol in August 2010.

“Yeah, but I can’t remember them,” he said of his drunken nights. “Seriously, in the last three years of drinking I blacked out nearly every time. Blacking out was my thing.”

“The drinking was unhealthy and damaging to my body and my social life. That’s beyond question,” he said. “I was living in constant fear of who I’d meet, what I might have said to them, what I might have done with them, so I’d stay in my apartment for days and drink alone.

“I was a recluse at 20. It was pathetic — it wasn’t me. I’m a fun, polite person and it turned me into a rude bore.”

He added: “For a long time people were saying to me ‘we think you have a problem’ but in the end I had to come to the realisation myself.”

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