‘Harry Potter’ actor Tom Felton explains how an escape from rehab helped his sobriety
Tom Felton (left) and his wife Kate (right) with son Tom Jr. on their wedding day in July 2013.
Tom Felton is a recovering alcoholic who credits an 18-month treatment program with helping him stay sober. Tom was an actor who became addicted to drugs and drinking in his early 20s, which resulted in a suicide attempt and the removal of his eyesight. The 39 year-old recently told People magazine, “I didn’t know a thing about the recovery process,” describing his decision to go to rehab to stop drinking as a “no-brainer.” “You don’t stop drinking all of a sudden. It takes time. It takes months,” he says in the interview. “You can’t really change the way you feel. But I really needed to be a lot more honest with myself about what I needed to change.”
The father of two children who lives in Los Angeles says that “once you’ve made that decision, [the treatment] is a great idea.” He adds, “You’re going to be a lot better. You’re going to be a lot happier. You’re going to be a lot more content and more fulfilled without being so drunk.” Tom says that his own treatment program at A.A. in Woodland Hills was designed to help him get back on track. He says his first few months “were not good at all.” He adds of his experiences with A.A., “The people there were really good. It was just the first months. But I’ll tell you, I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my life.” Tom says after 18 months in rehab he’s a different person — and “a lot stronger.”
Tom got sober in March 2017, but the decision to kick addictive habits wasn’t as simple as he made it out to be. Tom said in his People magazine interview: “There was a lot of denial. I really didn’t want to believe that I could go through it and come out the other side. And I went through it two times — once I was