Brad Pitt has opened up about his experience in Alcoholics Anonymous, saying that he was on his knees before beginning the program.
During an appearance on Dax Shepard’s Monday episode of his podcast, “Armchair Expert,” the actor praised AA as an “amazing thing,” adding, “I just thought it was just incredible men sharing their experiences, their foibles, their missteps, their wants, their aches, and a lot of humor with it. I thought it was a really special experience,” according to People.
Shepard, who has been candid about his battle with addiction, asked Pitt if he felt “nervous” speaking with him in public, since their first meeting took place in AA, which was marked with “really heightened honesty and vulnerability,” but Pitt assured he was “quite at ease.” He did, however, admit to being “shy” coming into the AA group. He sought help after sinking to a low point in his life.
“I was pretty much on my knees, and I was really open,” he told Shepard. “I was trying anything and everyone. Anything anyone threw at me. It was a difficult time. I needed rebooting. I needed to wake the [expletive] up in some areas. And it just meant a lot to me.”
Pitt has been open about his battle with addiction.
In a 2017 profile for GQ magazine, the Hollywood star admitted that he had used drugs and alcohol for a large portion of his life, and that his drinking “became a problem” in his marriage to Angelina Jolie. The former couple exchanged wedding vows in 2014 but jointly filed for divorce two years later. They finally settled their divorce in December 2024, after an eight-year legal battle.
In 2019, Pitt spoke about his recovery and how cathartic it had been to talk freely in AA meetings in an interview with The New York Times.
“You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard,” he told the outlet. “It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself.”
The 55-year-old actor said he decided to stop drinking after pushing the boundaries with the people closest to him.
“I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges,” Pitt told the Times at the time. Joining AA was an important part of his sobriety.
“It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself,” he said of the meetings.
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