Overview
- Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs on Sunday, the actor said he is a recovering alcoholic and has been sober for 21 years.
- He said drinking began as a way to blunt severe social anxiety and later left him drinking alone, which hurt his family life.
- Morrissey linked the addiction to watching his father’s long illness and death at 15, then leaving school at 16 to join a touring theatre group.
- He described a late-night call to a former colleague in Alcoholics Anonymous who came to his home and sat with him, after which he stopped drinking.
- He said theatre became a refuge that made him feel safe, citing early days at Liverpool’s Everyman Youth Theatre and later training at RADA.