Denzel Washington Opens Up About 15-Year Battle with Alcohol

Hollywood legend Denzel Washington has shared intimate details about his struggles with alcohol over the years.

During an interview with Esquire, the two-time Academy Award winner revealed his journey with wine consumption, describing it as a "fifteen-year pattern" that started subtly but evolved into a regular habit.

He began, "Wine is very tricky. It’s very slow. It ain’t like, boom, all of a sudden," he explained, recounting how a wine cellar in a home he built in 1999 became a source of indulgence.

The actor added, "And part of it was we built this big house in 1999 with a ten-thousand-bottle wine cellar, and I learned to drink the best. So I’m gonna drink my ’61s and my ’82s and whatever we had. Wine was my thing, and now I was popping $4,000 bottles just because that’s what was left. And then later in those years I’d call Gil Turner’s Fine Wines & Spirits on Sunset Boulevard and say, Send me two bottles, the best of this or that."

Reflecting on his journey, Washington also opened up about experimenting with drugs in his youth, though he noted he never became dependent on substances like heroin or cocaine.

He continued, "I’m sure at first it was easy because I was younger. Two months off and let’s go. But drinking was a fifteen-year pattern. And truth be told, it didn’t start in ’99. It started earlier."

The turning point came a decade ago, as Washington approached 60. He made the decision to quit drinking entirely.

"I’ve done a lot of damage to the body. We’ll see. I’ve been clean. Be ten years this December. I stopped at sixty and I haven’t had a thimble’s worth since. Things are opening up for me now—like being seventy. It’s real. And it’s okay. This is the last chapter—if I get another thirty, what do I want to do? My mother made it to ninety-seven," said Washington.