Tom Holland Says 'Struggling Without Booze' During Dry January Pushed Him Toward Sobriety

Mar. 15, 2025

“Spider-Man” star Tom Holland in January 2024.Photo:Steve Granitz/FilmMagic

Steve Granitz/FilmMagic

Tom Hollandsays that his decision to quit drinking came in 2022 after he tried doingDry January— making it the entire month without drinking — and found it difficult.

“I couldn’t quite wrap my head around how much I was struggling without booze in that first month — and It really scared me,” theSpider-Manstar, 28, said on Oct. 17 episode of theRich Roll podcast.“I decided, as a sort of punishment to myself, that I would do February as well as January.”

But the second month, he said, “was no easier. If anything, it got a little bit harder. So I was starting to kind of panic, thinking, ‘Damn. I have a bit of an alcohol thing.’ “

Tom Holland in Los Angeles in 2023.Araya Doheny/Getty

Araya Doheny/Getty

He shared that that revelation — coupled with an “upsetting conversation” he’d had with his doctor about his liver —  made him think “ ‘Wow, maybe I have a bit of an issue here.' ”

TheRomeo & Julietactor said he decided to do a third month, explaining, “I got through March. and started to feel a little bit better, but was still really struggling. So I said to myself, ‘If I can make it to June 1st, which is my birthday, and I can do six months without booze, I will have then proved to myself that I don’t have a problem. I’m just young and enjoying a drink.”

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“I started sleeping better. I was handling stressful situations better. My relationship [withZendaya] was better. My relationship with my family was better. My relationship with my work was better.”

Tom Holland with “Spider-Man” costar and longtime partner Zendaya.Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

He shared that his relationship with alcohol had been “a complicated one,” saying “it was my go-to to celebrate, and my go-to to commiserate.”

And as an actor, “you always have a reason to be drinking. Or, I felt like I always had a reason to be drinking.”

While he says “I was never a bad drunk,” he said he didn’t have a stopping point.

“I wasn’t the type of person that could nip to the pub for a pint,” he said. “I wanted to lock the door behind me.”

“I polished off a mini-bar one too many times,” he said, saying that he was lucky to have the support system around him that kept him from spiraling further.

“They never allowed that to happen,” Holland said, sharing that his fellowAvengersfranchise star,Robert Downey Jr.— who has overcome his ownstruggles with addiction— has “been a real ally for me.”

Tom Holland with Robert Downey Jr. in Hollywood in 2017.Todd Williamson/Getty

Todd Williamson/Getty

“I would get really uncomfortable and not confident in social scenarios out in public. That’s why I really latched onto drinking because it masked that insecurity with stupidity," says Holland, adding that these days, he doesn’t “try as hard to go out to the L.A. parties and mix with celebrities that I don’t know.”

“I used to go to these parties, and be like, ‘I can’t speak to someone until I’m drunk,’ ” said Holland, who was 19 when he made his Marvel debut asSpider-Man. He added, “I’ve grown up a little bit, I know that It isn’t my place to be.”

“When I realized that alcohol wasn’t masking my insecurity or bringing out my best self — it was actually doing the opposite — [I] started to feel this freedom of like, ‘ I can just be myself.’ “

source: people.com