I spent the past couple days trying to figure out what made me so upset about Brad Pitt’s discomforting Esquire profile, the one that revealed that after seven years of abstinence he’s — “back off the wagon” — and wondered whether any kind of commentary I (or anyone else writing on The Small Bow) could provide on the subject would come off us as classic, self-centered concern trolling and rubbernecking. But let’s rubberneck for a minute because the abuse allegations against Pitt levied by his ex-wife Angelina Jolie and his now ex-children are horrific and are directly tied to his drinking. It’s been put into many barely-redacted legal documents that Pitt’s drinking sometimes made him violent and that sometimes that violence was perpetrated against his wife and children. 

That part gets blithely glossed over in the Esquire piece, and instead it chooses to marvel at how good a host he is, the way he puts a charcuterie board together, the color of the plates he uses to serve the crackers and cheese, his overly friendly dogs, how he can’t stand the bad acting at the World Cup, and other banal observations, in order to fully avoid unpacking this part:

We pull down the little Perriers pretty quick, and I point out that he offered me wine earlier. At an awards ceremony in 2020, he thanked his friend Bradley Cooper for helping him get sober and talked more deeply about his sobriety on Dax Shepard’s podcast, Armchair Expert, last June. I ask him if the wine is something for guests?

“No, I got—I was sober for seven years. And then I got back off the wagon.” Little laugh. He raises his famous opposing-diacritic eyebrows and holds a finger up: “In a more restrained manner. I got overconfident a couple times, went, Yep, nope, not good for me. Not in big quantities.”

“You can have a glass of wine.” [The writer seeks clarification.]

“Yeah. Well . . . I can have a few. But I can’t have a lot. I have to be professional about it.”

I don’t believe it’s Esquire’s job to prod him at this moment in his living room, but leaving that “professional” part dangling there — leaving any of his quotes about drinking again in here at all — is a pretty bizarre choice. How is that supposed to be interpreted other than egregious image-laundering given what’s known about that terrible plane ride?

Because I’m wondering what happened to Brad Pitt the alcoholic. I say “alcoholic” because Pitt was not discreet about his A.A. membership; he joined a few years back thanks to the aforementioned Bradley Cooper, Dax Shepard, and the usual Seal Team of sober celebs who get summoned to peel other movie stars off the rocks when they get publicly bashed against them.

But what now? How to proceed with this intel that a man with a violent history of alcoholism is now capable of handling his drinking because — well, because he’s an early riser.

He likes mornings now anyway [!], and you can miss a lovely morning when you drink too much the night before, and it’s just not as interesting. Mornings are interesting, and he doesn’t want any more of them to go by unseen.

I mean — FUCK. Can you just swerve away from all the potential awfulness that easily?

I tried to think about why a story about Brad Pitt off-the-wagoning in Esquire seems so irresponsible to me, as opposed to someone admitting to a relapse on The Small Bow in an anonymous check-in, or an essay. I can only say that from my perspective, people who write about their recovery and relapses here tend to do so because they have a willingness to change, to become better people than they used to be for themselves, for others, with or without sobriety. But, man, should we assume that about Brad Pitt simply because he doesn’t want to miss a sunrise anymore? Or that he’s no longer suicidal because he’s an eternal optimist? I don’t, but that’s my problem to get worked up about. But it’s someone’s problem, right?

For more insight, I emailed TSB’s resident addiction expert, Joe Schrank, to get his thoughts on both the story and my feelings about it to help figure this out.

TSB: I'll admit I was saddened by these quotes, and you didn't see them as the looming disaster as much as I did. What was your first response?

JS: My first response whenever a celebrity is involved is that I feel bad for them. Sobriety is a salmon swim as it is; to have to add People magazine being interested in your recovery seems daunting to me.

After that, my response was, “Well, sure. People evolve into different phases of their recovery.” A.A. culture remains the dominant voice in the media narrative of recovery, but the truth about how people recover is way more complicated than the typical story of “redemption in A.A. and never drank again.” That version of recovery does exist, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s actually pretty rare. My other response was: “The finger-wagging A.A. shamers won’t help him.” Ironically, one of the things that came to mind when I was reading this is that one of the best A.A. pieces of wisdom is “if you’re taking inventories, take your own.”

TSB: Yeah, I am finger-wagging. And I am clearly taking it way too personally, taking everyone’s inventory — Brad Pitt’s, Esquire’s, the writer’s – because hearing about anyone turning in their A.A. membership always makes me uneasy. It’s probably akin to when someone in your friend group gets divorced; you kind of steer clear of that person because they’re now contaminated and you don’t want that to ruin your own marriage or awaken something buried. 

JS: Recovery is very much a spectrum. If Pitt lived at the total-abstinence end of that spectrum for seven years, that’s great. If he no longer does, it doesn’t inherently mean total disaster.

We tend to use A.A. as the standard for everything, even though it’s just one way people address this issue, not the only way. Millions of Americans describe themselves as being in recovery, and research has shown that people get there in all kinds of ways.

Could Brad Pitt be an unimpaired recreational drinker? He could. Given what I know about him solely from media reporting, I think it’s highly unlikely that will be the case.

But that’s my opinion, not science.

TSB: But is there science here?

JS: The science is actually more interesting. People with alcohol use disorder do sometimes return to non-problematic drinking. There are people who stick with beer and give up distilled spirits and find success. There are people who dramatically reduce their drinking. There are people who remain abstinent forever. There are people who move between these things over the course of their lives.

We have decades of research showing that some people with alcohol use disorder achieve meaningful, stable recovery without permanent abstinence. One study followed people for ten years after alcohol treatment and found sustained non-abstinent recovery among some of them. A major review of controlled drinking versus abstinence found that the evidence does not support abstinence as the only legitimate treatment goal. (PubMed Central (PMC)⁠)

Even the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism no longer defines recovery as necessarily meaning zero alcohol. Its definition involves remission from alcohol use disorder and stopping the heavy drinking. It specifically does not require abstinence. Abstinence remains the safest option, but those are two different statements. (NIAAA⁠)

TSB: My other response was -- hmm, should Esquire provide more context? Mainly that the legal allegations made against him by his family are directly tied to how much he was drinking at the time. That his drinking has caused dangerous and tragic consequences, and now he’s back at it and we’re just gonna stick to the charcuterie board and the dogs and the views, cross our fingers, wish him well.

Will attempts at controlled drinking cause Brad Pitt to return to impaired, consequence-type drinking? Maybe. That’s the answer.

And given what has been publicly reported about his history with alcohol, I would certainly be concerned. Three glasses of wine interfering with your ability to appreciate a simple morning is one thing. Alcohol being associated with serious consequences in your family is something else entirely. That context matters.

But concern isn’t clairvoyance. It’s up to him to decide.

He can always call me and talk about it without judgment, shame, or attempts to coerce an outcome. I think people get upset about this stuff when it’s a celebrity because celebrities somehow give legitimacy, as if things become sacrosanct when a celebrity endorses them. That’s likely better for Kylie Jenner and lip gloss.

When it comes to recovery and people, we have to factor in human complexity and fragility.

I’m what I have taken to calling “trad sober”: abstinent from all forms of intoxication for nearly 30 years, meetings, service, etc. That lifestyle has given me much, but it hasn’t given me the justification to coerce or shame people into doing what I do. Brad Pitt gets to live his story. He gets to decide. He gets to try various manifestations of what recovery is and what it is to him. The rest of us get to take our own inventory. 

****

Joe Schrank is a frequent guest and contributor to The Small Bow. He also hosts the Saturday TSB recovery meeting if you want to check it out.

If you don't feel comfortable calling yourself an “alcoholic,” that’s fine. If you have issues with sex, food, drugs, codependency, love, loneliness, and/or depression, come on in. Newcomers are especially welcome.

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