John Stamos says after DUI hospital stay he 'drank a bottle of wine just to forget'
John Stamos' DUI sent him further into the depths of alcohol addiction before he entered rehab, according to the actor.
"When I did get the DUI … I came home from the hospital that night, I sat down, I drank a bottle of wine just to forget what just happened," he told People in an interview published Wednesday. "And I never sobered up. When you sober up, you have to look at the ugly truth, so you keep drinking."
In his debut memoir "If You Would Have Told Me," Stamos gets candid about his battle with alcoholism, which surfaced during his 2002 Broadway run as Emcee in "Cabaret."
The "Full House" star began filming "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2" shortly after he was charged with a misdemeanor DUI in 2015 after driving intoxicated through the streets of Beverly Hills, California.
"So I was kind of just loosely buzzed through the shooting of that movie," he told People.
Stamos said filming "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2" was his "bottom," in an appearance on Mayim Bialik's podcast "Bialik Breakdown" episode on Tuesday. "But I didn't get it and I just numbed myself for a few weeks after that. And when I came home, my sisters were like, 'OK, it's time to go, we found this place.' And I’m like, 'OK, I’m ready,'" he recalled.
In an interview with USA TODAY ahead of Stamos' memoir release in October, the soap star said what began as "liquid courage" to get through "Cabaret" became a ritual of "drinking a bottle of wine every performance."
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"Writing about (the DUI) just made me sick to my stomach because I could've killed somebody," he said. "It was just gross where I'd gotten to, where I threw all my family values, morals and beliefs that I’d had for so many years right out the window."
Following the DUI incident, Stamos began his sobriety journey with an Alcoholics Anonymous treatment program in Utah. He says getting sober has played "a big part (in) my fairytale ending."
"Addiction runs rampant these days, and I just wanted to show people that if I could get through it then anyone can," Stamos said. "And without it, if I didn't sober up, I would not have a family. I would not have a son. I would not have a wife. I don't even know if I’d be alive."
Contributing: Edward Segarra
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: John Stamos opens up about DUI, continued drinking before sobriety