Actor Ben Affleck seemed to blame his marriage to actress Jennifer Garner for his substance abuse during a recent interview with host Howard Stern.
Affleck, who has been open about his alcoholism, said on SiriusXM’s “The Howard Stern Show” that he felt “trapped” in his marriage to the actress, with whom he has children, and would “still” be in the throes of alcoholism if they were still together.
“We probably would’ve ended up at each other’s throats,” Affleck told Stern, according to PageSix. “I probably still would’ve been drinking. … Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped.”
“I was like, ‘I can’t leave because of my kids, but I’m not happy, what do I do?’ And what I did was [I] drank a bottle of scotch and fell asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution,” the 49-year-old continued.
“Ultimately, we tried, we tried, we tried because we had kids, but both of us felt like we didn’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage.”
The couple, who have three kids together — Violet, 16, Seraphina, 12, and Samuel, 9 — finalized their divorce in 2018, the same year Affleck checked into rehab for his addiction. Garner famously drove him to the rehab center.
“Everything you read [in the news about the divorce] was bulls***,” Affleck claimed. “The truth was we took our time; we made our decision … We grew apart. We had a marriage that didn’t work. This happens. She’s somebody I love and respect, but to whom I shouldn’t be married any longer.”
“We did it amicably,” he contended. “We did our best. Did we have moments of tension? Did we have disagreements over custody? Was stuff difficult for us? Did we get angry? Yes, but fundamentally it was always underpinned with a respect. … I knew she was a good mom. I always hoped she knew I was a good dad. I knew I was.”
Speaking generally of addiction, Affleck said the “cure” for the issue is “suffering.”
“The cure for addiction is suffering, you suffer enough, that something inside you goes, ‘I’m done,’” he said. “I’m lucky because I hit that point before I lost the things that were most important. Not my career or money — it was my relationship with my kids, and when I felt as if it impacted them, I recognized it.”
“It was the worst day of my life. I made amends … But since that day, I swear to Christ, I have not ever wanted to drink once.”
Speaking of his children, Affleck noted that they already have it hard with him and Garner being celebrities, and their public divorce did not help matters.
“Me and their mom are celebrities and that’s hard. Let’s not bulls*** each other, right? That’s a f***ing cross to bear, that’s an albatross already,” he said, “and then during the divorce, you know they printed horrible lies.”