Denzel Washington Celebrates 10 Years Sober

Actor Denzel Washington speaks candidly about doing damage to his body before going sober...

From People

Denzel Washington is approaching a decade of sobriety, saying “I haven’t had a thimble’s worth since” quitting alcohol when he turned 60.

The Gladiator II star — who turns 70 next month — looks back on his relationship with alcohol in the Winter issue of Esquire, where he graces the cover.

It started, he tells the outlet, with wine. ““Wine is very tricky. It’s very slow. It ain’t like, boom, all of a sudden.”

“I never got strung out on heroin. Never got strung out on coke. Never got strung out on hard drugs. I shot dope just like they shot dope, but I never got strung out,” he told the publication. “And I never got strung out on liquor. I had this ideal idea of wine tastings and all that — which is what it was at first. And that’s a very sub­tle thing. I mean, I drank the best.”

He shared that he “wasn’t drinking when we filmed Flight,” the 2012 drama in which he played an alcoholic airline pilot, but "I’m sure I did as soon as I finished. That was getting toward the end of the drinking, but I knew a lot about waking up and looking around, not knowing what happened,” he told Esquire.

Looking back, Washington says, “I’ve done a lot of damage to the body. We’ll see. I’ve been clean.”