Originally appeared on E! Online
Brad Pitt isn’t afraid to be vulnerable about his health.
In fact, the “Ocean’s Eleven” alum revealed what “an amazing thing” Alcoholics Anonymous was for him as he navigated his sobriety journey after his ex Angelina Jolie filed for divorce in 2016.
“It was when I first was getting sober,” Pitt explained to Dax Shepard on the June 23 episode of Armchair Expert. “It was just incredible. Men sharing their experiences, their foibles, their missteps, their wants, their aches and a lot of humor with it.”
The 63-year-old — who shares Maddox, 23, Pax, 21, Zahara, 20, Shiloh, 19, and 16-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox with Jolie — admitted that despite initially struggling to share his story during the group sessions, he “really grew to love it.”
“I was pretty much on my knees and I was really open,” he recalled. “I was trying anything, anything anyone threw at me. It was a difficult time. I needed rebooting. I needed to wake the f— up in some areas. And it just meant a lot to me … Everyone was so open.”
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And it helped that other attendees shared their highs and lows during their session. While being a celebrity did add some concerns — especially with the possibility that someone would divulge his admissions — Pitt didn’t shy away from his problems.
“I am a stubborn f—,” the Oscar winner — who is now dating Ines de Ramon — emphasized. “When I’ve stepped in s—, I’m pretty good at taking responsibility for it and owning up to it. Now it’s a quest to, ‘What do I do with this? How can I right this?’ And make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“I was really open to see what these guys were doing, who had their thing and been there for a while,” he said of his decision to go. “I can generally be a bit shy in any kind of situation first. But I just remember getting my arms around it pretty quickly. It became a thing for me. It was really something I’d look forward to.”
It turns out, Shepard — who has often detailed his own journey with sobriety — had been a shoulder to lean on as a regular in the 30-person group meeting.
“I really respected it,” Pitt said. “It was really open, honest. It was a way to take whatever theme seemed to go in the evening and then put it in the funniest package. It meant a lot to me, it really did.”
The “Fight Club” star admitted that he began attending the meetings after an altercation with Jolie over his drinking while on board a private plane, which led to their divorce. As he explained to The New York Times in 2019, “I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges.”
