With 2025 now upon us, many will be partaking in ‘Dry January’ – in fact, according to a CivicScience survey one in four Americans aged 21 or over successfully abstained from alcohol last year for the entire 31-day month.
But what’s that got to do with Tom Holland? Well, in 2022 the English actor took part in the trend at the young-age of 25, and that’s how his sobriety began.
Having successfully reached three years sober, the 28-year-old has reflected on ‘eye-opening moment’ that saw him lead a life without beer – or alcoholic beer, anyway.
“Every Friday after work was a write-off: Let’s get drunk and have a good time. I didn’t have bad experiences, but I would drink enough so that I would ruin my next day,” he told Men’s Health.
He explained how he had a conversation with his doctor about his liver and how the first month was quite hard to get through without having a drink, but it was the night he spent with one of his brothers that really stood out to him.
Like most people, Holland felt like he needed to drink at social events and so having driven his brother to a poker night, he recalled how he asked if he could drive them home halfway through the night as he felt like he couldn’t enjoy himself.
“It was a bit of an eye-opening moment for me and for him,” Holland continued. “It’s really helpful when the people closest to you start going, ‘Are you sure?’”
It was at that moment that Holland – who has been in a high-profile relationship with Zendaya since 2021 – decided he was going to push on to try and go two months sober, then after he reached five full months alcohol-free, his 26th birthday came on June 1, 2022.
Initially he thought it would be a big blowout, but after 151 days off the bottle, he didn’t really want to.
It came just weeks after working on murder mystery series The Crowded Room and shooting for it wasn’t a pleasant experience.
“There was quite a lot of animosity on that set. It was not a very harmonious place, and there was a lot of arguing and butting heads,” Holland told the outlet.
“I thought, ‘If I start drinking again now, with all this going on, it’s gonna get worse, right?’”
So he decided to adjust to a life of complete sobriety.
“I’m quite strong-willed. When I decide to do something, I’m really gonna do it,” he explained. “I leaned on close ones a lot: family, friends, old colleagues, new colleagues, people that reached out that I didn’t know who also were sober.”
But it was a conversation with his lawyer that became a game changer for him. Holland went on: “He gave me a really poignant piece of advice that helped me get through everything, which was: You’ll never wake up the morning after a night out and wish you had a drink.
“That piece of advice really rang true to me, because my problem was that I would have one drink and be fine, and then I would just go too far.”
If you’ve been affected by addiction and want to speak to someone in confidence, you can call American Addiction Centers on (888) 324-0595, available 24/7, or contact them through their website.
