Michael J. Fox is opening up about using alcohol to cope with the depression and denial of receiving a Parkinson’s diagnosis.
The Back to the Future actor was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease—a degenerative, neurological condition that causes tremors and balance issues—in 1991, but wouldn’t go public with the news until years later. Instead, as Fox reveals in the new documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, he first turned to dopamine pills—a frontline treatment for the early symptoms of Parkinson’s—but he says his intentions weren’t the best.
“Therapeutic value, comfort—none of these were the reason I took these pills. There was only one reason: to hide. I became a virtuoso of manipulating drug intake so that I’d peak at exactly the right time and place,” the actor shared in the documentary, which earned him a standing ovation at its Sundance Festival premiere Friday.
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When popping the prescription pills “like Halloween Smarties” was no longer enough and his prognosis seemed grim, Fox began to self-medicate with alcohol.
“I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know what was coming. So what if I could just have four glasses of wine and maybe a shot? I was definitely an alcoholic,” he said. “But I’ve gone 30 years without having a drink.”
Fox on Confronting a Scary Diagnosis While Sober: ‘I Could No Longer Escape Myself’
While Fox found sobriety, he soon found out that he’d have to face his diagnosis one way or another.
“As low as alcohol had brought me, abstinence would bring me lower. I could no long escape myself,” the Family Ties actor explained. Staying home while sober proved to be too much, and he began traveling as much as possible to “escape himself”—and the frightening diagnosis that was now ever-present.
“You can’t pretend at home that you don’t have Parkinson’s because you’re just there with it. If I’m out in the world, I’m dealing with other people and they don’t know I have it.”
But he could only travel so far, and eventually the actor began to come to terms with his diagnosis—Fox publicly disclosed his Parkinson’s in 1998 and became an advocate for finding a cure, founding the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000.
“Some people would view the news of my disease as an ending, but I was starting to sense it was really a beginning,” he adds.
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie will be released by Apple TV+ later this year; this story comes to us from USA Today.
