Johnathon Schaech Says Sobriety 'Wouldn't Click' Until His Wife Got Pregnant

The actor opened up during a recent podcast appearance about how his wife ultimately spurred his efforts to get sober

Johnathon Schaech is looking back on his sobriety journey, sharing that it wasn’t until his wife Julie got pregnant that he was able to stop drinking.

On the Aug. 22 episode of her podcast I Choose Me, Jennie Garth asked the actor, “You chose to get sober. What made you realize you were ready for that?"

“I had tried numerous times to get sober. I go to meetings and wouldn't click,” Schaech, 54, replied. “I couldn't really respond. I wasn't responding to what everyone was talking about in those meetings,” he said, adding that he “kept going back.”

For the star, it wasn’t until “I met my wife, Julie, and [then] she was pregnant, and I kept looking in the mirror at myself, saying, 'Who's this guy? Am I going to continue doing the things that I've done in the past? And am I going to ruin this like I've ruined everything else in my life?’ “

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At that moment, the DC's Legends of Tomorrow alum said, he “just decided that I wasn't using any substance and I was gonna stop drinking alcohol [and get it] completely out of my system.”

“I started realizing how much poison it was and what I was doing. It was poison in my body, and I just stopped. I quit," he explained. "I kept going to meetings, got a great sponsor, and I started to find what they call 'the miracle' in the program.”

The That Thing You Do! alum, who was married to Christina Applegate from 2001 until 2007, and married to Jana Kramer for less than a month in 2010, said, “In the first year that we were together, I was definitely abusing drugs and alcohol still like I was a young kid in Hollywood, thinking that that was the way to entice this girl."

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“That wasn't the truth and it wasn't becoming of me to be that individual anymore,” Schaech said. “I wanted to be more, for me first, and then for her, and then what turned out to be for our for our son and then our daughter, and I'm very grateful to be sober still to this day.”

Schaech and his wife share daughter Lily Jo, 4, and son Camden Quinn, 10 — and he highlighted how he recently “got my a ten year chip,” which marks a milestone decade of sobriety.

Related: Jason Mewes on Marking His 14th Sober Anniversary: 'A Very Big Deal for Me' (Exclusive)

He shared that when he went to an Alcoholics Anonymous in Nashville, “they didn't have a ten year chip. No physical ten year chip." Laughing, he added, "So my wife got me a ten year chip online.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.

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