Jason Bateman details honest conversations with wife that made him get sober
The actor made the decision to go 'California sober' the year he married his wife Amanda Anka
Jason Bateman has opened up about his sobriety as he detailed the key conversations he had with wife Amanda Anka that made him change his partying ways.
“Amanda and I definitely had a few negotiations about the point at which the [partying] spigot was going to completely turn off,” Bateman, 57, said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, as he outlined how she had encouraged rather than ordered him to make changes to his lifestyle. “She’d be like, ‘This drip, drip, drip is annoyingly unpredictable, Jason.’”
As part of the negotiations, Anka took a relaxed approach and Bateman explained that although she didn’t ‘demand’ he ‘absolve completely’ from substances, it was a natural conclusion he came to on his own, for the sake of his relationship.
“I was like, ‘Well, I feel like my [sobriety] ETA is six months away, but if I could land this plane now, it would alleviate a lot of the tension, so let’s just f***ing do it,’” he said.
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At the height of his partying, Bateman was no stranger to alcohol and cocaine, which he branded ‘The Scarface stuff’ in a reference to the iconic Al Pacino film, however after vowing to become sober he hasn’t touched either, instead opting only to smoke marijuana, something he described as 'California sober.'
Reflecting on how he managed to hide his partying ways for so long, Bateman added: “Fortunately I was living at a time without social media and camera phones, so I got away with a lot,” he recalled. “But it was definitely close a few times,”
Part of his realisation that his lifestyle needing to change came from watching friends struggle with addiction themselves, as he explained: “I’ve got friends who had bottoms that were pretty chilling, but I was lucky enough to recognise, ‘This is probably as far as I should go if I still want to accomplish the things that I want to get to,’” he told the outlet.
“I was conscious the whole time of wanting to get a lot of these boxes checked before I became a father and a guy with a career that I not only wanted but had a feeling I might be able to get it if I just got the right job,” the Emmy winner added.
Bateman married Anka in July 2001— the very same year he got sober, and he hasn’t looked back since.
The couple went on to welcome daughters Francesca, now 19, and Maple, now 14, in 2006 and 2012, respectively - with fatherhood being one of his proudest accomplishments.
Yet his happy marriage almost didn’t happen, as he previously told Details in a 2009 interview, that his partying, if he had continued, may have ruined his relationship with Anka for good.
“I was never at a place where rehab would have been appropriate,” he reflected. “Booze was what would make me want to stay out all night and do some blow or smoke a joint or whatever, so shutting that off was key. It’s like ketchup and French fries — I don’t want one without the other.”
Yet it was through a shared understanding and clear boundaries that they were able to build a foundation that is still going strong today.
“Our marriage has defied the odds and works really well,” he told Redbook in January 2013. “We are really aware of our boundaries. We know how to bug each other and not bug each other. If you don’t get along, it’s garbage. With a girlfriend, you get into a fight, you drive away. With us, we learn to fight quickly or not at all. I wanted to marry a friend. Friends last longer.”
Phoebe Tonks