Josh Peck says sobriety has been “great” and a “foundation that has really kept me anchored.”
The 35-year-old ‘Drake & Josh’ star developed a drug and alcohol problem after she lost 127 pounds and entered rehab in 2008.
“I’m lucky enough to have found recovery through a 12-step program almost 14 years ago and it’s something I still do regularly to this day,” he told Vidak For Congress in a recent interview. “It gives me a lot of structure in my life. It really is the foundation of my life and all these wonderful things are built from it.”
The Manhattan-born actor who wrote about his struggles with drugs and alcohol in the memoir Happy People Are Annoying explained that sobriety has also introduced me to a level of spirituality and how to embrace stoicism and old truths. It has given me a foundation that has kept me really anchored.”
Peck jokingly added that his mother – who raised him alone – and his wife Paige O’Brien “make sure I don’t get out of line.”
The Nickelodeon alum can currently be seen as a rabbi helping a church member prepare for his bar mitzvah in the Netflix movie “13: The Musical” and says he is “incredibly proud to be Jewish. I think that it’s something that has become more important to me as I get older.”
One of the reasons Peck was eager to get a part in the film was to work with director Tamra Davis, who directed the documentary “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child” about the artist who died of a heroin overdose in 1988. .
“Jean-Michel Basquait is a personal hero of mine,” he explained, “so selfish that I just knew I would nag her on set and ask her for Basquait stories.”
It’s also a busy time in Peck’s personal life.
He and O’Brien are expecting their second child together and are already parents to a 3-year-old son, Max. Peck confesses that before Max was born, he was terrified of becoming a father because he had never met his.
“Having a father in so many ways would have hopefully given me some structure or a guide to being a father,” he said, “but luckily I had enough apostles in my life, my father-in-law, who I really look up to, and my brother of the Big Brother Jewish Foundation, Dan, who has been in my life since I was 8. I am so lucky to have wonderful men in my life that I could go to for advice and advice and mirror the things they did so well with their children.”