Brad Pitt weer aan de drank

quote:

After seven years of much-publicized sobriety, Brad Pitt earlier this month told Esquire that he is “back off the wagon.” Given that Pitt has spent the last few years publicly volunteering information about his alcohol use and subsequent sobriety, his casual revelation that he now drinks “in a more restrained manner” raised more than a few eyebrows and spurred a wave of headlines.

Initially, I was wary of commenting f news. Brad Pitt’s sobriety is none of my business. But I’m also a sober journalist who writes a newsletter about addiction recovery; whether or not a person with a history of alcohol addiction can moderate their alcohol use after a period of sobriety is among the most frequent questions I receive.

Whether or not a person with a history of alcohol addiction can moderate their alcohol use after a period of sobriety is among the most frequent questions I receive.

Given that Pitt has repeatedly spoken publicly about his struggles with alcohol and subsequent sobriety, discussing the latest development feels like fair game.

The story also raises a second issue worth exploring: the redemptive recovery narrative as public image rehabilitation.

The immediate question, and the genesis of so many headlines following Pitt’s “off the wagon” admission, is whether a former “problem drinker” can drink moderately following a period of sobriety. For decades, the medical establishment would confidently declare the answer is no.

Historically, doctors viewed alcoholism as binary — a person either had an alcohol addiction, or they did not. If they did, conventional wisdom dictated that lifelong abstinence from alcohol was the only solution. If a sober alcoholic picked up a drink after years of sobriety, clinicians explained, they would inevitably return to alcohol abuse (what we now call alcohol misuse), and the addiction would likely return.

This thinking was codified in large part by the influence of Alcoholics Anonymous and treatment centers that adopted an AA-like 12-step approach; AA’s foundational text argues that trying to make a “normal” drinker out of an alcoholic is like trying to “turn a pickle back into a cucumber.”

Mercifully, medical professionals are injecting a healthy dose of nuance into that old maxim — and how they think about alcohol misuse more broadly. Following studies from major organizations like the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, clinicians are now more often referring to “alcohol use disorder” (AUD) instead of “alcoholism.” And they are treating the condition as a spectrum upon which a person’s symptoms can be classified as mild, moderate, or severe. What used to be called “alcoholism” would be an example of severe alcohol use disorder.

This spectrum is the difference between a thermometer that tells you only whether or not you have a fever and a thermometer that tells you if the fever is mild enough to be kicked with fluids and a good night’s sleep or you’re in for a night at the ER. It’s relevant here because the research suggests that those on the mild to moderate side of the spectrum are more likely to moderate their alcohol use after a period of sobriety; those on the severe end are more likely to escalate back into heavier use.

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Even so, the research also tells us that a (admittedly small) fraction of people with severe alcohol use disorder who go back to heavy drinking after AUD treatment and a period of sobriety don’t always have the negative outcomes that one might expect.

For the general public, the bottom line is that recovery is individual and the process is often characterized by periods of abstinence, moderation, heavy use, and anything in between. Shaming people for how they approach it only alienates those who might otherwise be willing to start the journey.

That said, there are some extenuating circumstances that make Pitt’s revelations especially fraught.

One of those circumstances is what has been reported in court documents about his alcohol use and what he’s said was the impetus for his sobriety.

Pitt acknowledged that his alcohol use was a factor in his 2016 split with Angelina Jolie. “I was boozing too much,” he told GQ in 2017. “Truthfully I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional. I was good.”

There’s nothing particularly unusual about excessive alcohol use resulting in divorce, and it certainly doesn’t mean a person is doomed always to use alcohol in the same destructive way. But in 2022, Rolling Stone reported on allegations that, if true, should give anyone pause about Pitt casually delving back into alcohol use.

A redacted FBI report and subsequent legal documents allege Pitt became violent and abusive toward Jolie and their kids when intoxicated. Specifically, the FBI report refers to a plane flight in 2016 in which Pitt “grabbed [Jolie] by her head,” shook her, “pushed her into the bathroom wall,” and “repeatedly punched the ceiling of the plane.” Jolie also alleged that Pitt poured alcohol over her and one of their children during the same incident and appeared to lunge toward one of the children before Jolie intervened. The ensuing scuffle resulted in injuries to both parties, which Rolling Stone suggests may have complicated efforts to charge Pitt criminally.

Pitt acknowledged that his alcohol use was a factor in his 2016 split with Angelina Jolie. “I was boozing too much,” he told GQ in 2017.

Pitt denies the allegations. Jolie filed for divorce days after the alleged incident.

Pitt spent the next seven years telling outlets like The New York Times that he was committed to his sobriety and had “removed my drinking privileges.” When Rolling Stone published its story about the FBI investigation, Pitt reportedly hired the crisis manager for stars like Johnny Depp, Matthew Hiltzik, to help his “divorce narrative,” which “emphasized contrition and sobriety over scandal.” Just last year, Pitt told Armchair Expert podcast host Dax Shepard (whom Pitt credits with helping him find his way into Alcoholics Anonymous) that, following his split from Jolie, he was “desperate” and came to AA “on my knees…really open…trying anything anyone threw at me.”

So it was understandably jarring to read the following exchange in the Esquire profile.

In it, Pitt stresses to Esquire writer Ryan D’Agostino that moderation is his goal:

Pitt: [I can have wine] in a more restrained manner. I got overconfident a couple of times, went, Yep, nope, not good for me. Not in big quantities.”

D’Agostino: “You can have a glass of wine.”

Pitt: “Yeah. Well…I can have a few. But I can’t have a lot. I have to be professional about it.”

(In a discordant echo from that 2017 GQ piece where he claimed, “I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional,” “professionalism” in the Esquire profile now refers to the opposite behavior: moderation.)

So to answer the question asked of me so often, yes, it is possible for some people to drink in moderation after identifying as an alcoholic and maintaining sobriety. But in Pitt’s case, I have concerns. If Jolie’s allegations are true (no criminal charges were filed as a result of the alleged incident), it’s hard to view Pitt’s renewed alcohol use as inherently innocuous.

When a box office mega-star and allegations of abuse are at play, the equation isn’t quite as simple as “recovery looks different for everyone.” Alcohol-induced behavior isn’t magically remedied by a period of sobriety, which is something people following his high-profile journey might want to keep in mind. If alcohol was the catalyst for Pitt’s alleged actions, that’s usually a bigger issue than a seven-year time-out can address.