"Don't look to me as the pillar of health and wellness": Drew Barrymore opens up on breaking away from family's history of alcohol addiction

American actress, producer, talk show host, and author Drew Barrymore appeared for an exclusive interview with People magazine's Wendy Naugle in honor of their golden jubilee. During her interview, which was published on April 10, Drew Barrymore got candid about breaking the generational curse of alcoholism in her family.

Drew Barrymore asked people not to look up to her as the “pillar of health and wellness” and said:

“Don’t look to me as the pillar of health and wellness and having it all together. It's just like, you know what? This didn't work for our family, and I am going to stop it. I am going to be the one to break the link in that chain and maybe my kids and their kids will be better off for it. We have to fight genetic follies that our families bring to us.”

She added that more than her expansive acting career, it was beating her family’s history of addiction that made her proud of herself.

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Drew Barrymore says not drinking alcohol is a way of honoring her family name

Recently, Drew Barrymore joined People magazine for its 50th-anniversary celebration and said that it wasn’t a film or a TV show she was the proudest of, but rather withdrawing from alcohol intake.

“I think, for me, stopping drinking is one of the most honoring things I can do to the Barrymore name because we have all been such hedonists,” the 49-year-old Charlie’s Angels star said.

She also recalled opening up about her substance abuse problem at the age of 13 for People’s January 1989 cover issue and looking back on it as her own “beautiful little merit badge.”

Drew Barrymore also explained how she never felt pressured to join the acting business, coming from a family of Hollywood stars, but always had the pull. Regardless, her work ethic has been different from that of her ancestors.

“No matter what I have gone through in my personal life, I have never brought it to work. I have never screwed a job over. I don't ever flake. I don't come unprepared. I give everything of myself to work. I am a consummate professional with an infallible work ethic,” she mentioned.

She added that she never “phoned” anything in and tried to maintain her “professional endeavor” while also making herself into a “better, stronger, wiser person.”

Notably, this was not the first time the Never Been Kissed star talked to People about beating addiction. In 2022, she told the magazine that it was as a teenager that she recognized the warning signs of alcoholism and underwent rehabilitation.

However, she mentioned that after her third divorce from Will Kopelman in 2016, she often resorted to drinking to “numb the pain,” but soon realized that she cared about her children too much to give up on herself and their future.

“After the life I planned for my kids didn't work out — I almost think that was harder than the stuff [I went through] as a kid. It felt a lot more real because it wasn't just me. It was about these kids that I cared so much about,” she said in the 2022 interview.

“Then I probably cared so much that I was only giving to them and not taking care of myself. It was a messy, painful, excruciating walk-through-the-fire-and-come-back-to-life kind of trajectory,” the Golden Globe winner continued.

In January 2024, the Little Girl Lost author also got candid during an episode of the fifth season of The Drew Barrymore Show. She said she had to undergo therapy to quit drinking, and it was her kids who made her feel like “it’s game time.”

For those uninitiated, many of her family members battled with addiction. For instance, her grandfather, John Barrymore, allegedly died from alcohol consumption, while her father, John Drew Barrymore, reportedly had a history of insobriety.

Likewise, her aunt Diana Barrymore wrote in her memoir Too Much, Too Soon about her drug and liquor overuse.