Tom Holland Was 'Enslaved' To Alcohol Before Getting Sober: 'It Really Scared Me'

Tom Holland is opening up about the scary reality of alcohol dependency.

While the actor may play a superhero on the big screen, the Spider-Man: No Way Home star still struggles in very real, human ways — just like the rest of us.

If you keep up, you probably know that Tom has struggled with alcoholism throughout his twenties. He revealed to Entertainment Weekly back in May that he’d gotten a hold on it, and at the time was about a year and four months sober. However, he didn’t really address what sparked his journey to sobriety, or what his issues with alcohol were… Until now.

On Sunday, the 27-year-old sat down with Jay Shetty for an episode of the On Purpose podcast, where he opened up about the scary place he was in prior to calling it quits. He recalled:

“It’s interesting, I didn’t one day wake up and say, ‘I’m giving up drinking.’ I just, like many Brits, had a very, very boozy December — Christmas time, I was on vacation, I was drinking a lot, and I’ve always been able to drink a lot.”

He explained that after the holiday season wrapped, he decided to try out “dry January” — a popular trend where you don’t drink alcohol during the month of January, often after overdoing it during the holidays. He shared:

“I decided to just give it up for January, I just wanted to do dry January, and all I could think about was having a drink — it was all I could think about. I was waking up thinking about it, I was checking the clock, ‘When’s it 12?’ and it just really scared me. I just was like, ‘Wow, maybe I have a little bit of an alcohol thing.’ So I sort of decided to punish myself and say I’ll do February as well, I’ll do two months off, if I can do two months off, then I can prove to myself I don’t have a problem.”

Wow. What a scary realization that must have been! The Crowded Room star continued:

“Two months go by, and I was still really struggling — I felt like I couldn’t be social, I felt like I couldn’t go to the pub and have a lime soda, I couldn’t go out for dinner — I was really, really struggling, and I started to really worry that maybe I had an alcohol problem. So, I decided to wait until my birthday, which is June 1, I said to myself, ‘If I can do six months without alcohol, then I can prove to myself that I don’t have a problem.”

Lucky for Tom, that six-month break turned out to be just what he needed:

“By the time I had got to June 1, I was the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I could sleep better, I could handle problems better, things that would go wrong on set that would normally set me off, I could take in my stride. I had such better mental clarity, I felt healthier, I felt fitter, and I just sort of said to myself, like, ‘Why am I enslaved to this drink? Why am I so obsessed by the idea of having this drink?’”

What a powerful realization — and what an amazing birthday present to himself! He continued:

“It’s honestly been the best thing I’ve ever done. I’m a year and a half into it now. It doesn’t even cross my mind.”

We’re so proud of Tom! He added that his friends have been “super supportive,” and that his mom actually joined him in the journey to sobriety as well. He concluded:

“If I could encourage someone to drink less, that would be great. But I don’t want to start getting into the world of, ‘You need to stop drinking,’ because it’s not for me to say.”

Good for Tom! We’re sure his healthier lifestyle makes Zendaya happy as well. Watch his full interview (below):