NEWSDax Shepard Is 'Grateful' For Outpouring Of Support Following His Relapse
Sept. 29 2020, Updated 12:41 p.m. ET
After Dax Shepard revealed that he relapsed after 16 years, the actor is thankful that his fans, family and friends have been supportive during this difficult time.
"I want to say thanks to all the people that have been so unbelievably lovely to us in response to 'Day 7,'" Shepard, 45, said during the Monday, September 28, episode of his "Armchair Expert" podcast.
"My fears were the opposite of what the result was," he said, adding that he's "struggling with some fraudulent feelings of receiving love based on a f**k up."
"But, at any rate, I am really, really grateful, and there's so many beautiful, nice people," he shared.
During the September 25 episode of "Armchair Expert," the Parenthood alum revealed he had been having his issues with prescription pain medicine after recently injuring his hand and shoulder in a motorcycle accident.
Now the Parenthood alum is thanking his fans for the support he has received following his admission.
"I want to say thanks to all the people that have been so unbelievably lovely to us in response to 'Day 7,'" Shepard, 45, said during Monday's episode of his "Armchair Expert" podcast.
The "Day 7" podcast was recorded after he had been sober for seven days.
His co-host, Monica Padman, says she hopes Shepard feels "loved and supported" and that his fears were "abated."
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Shepard said that he's felt a sense of relief, saying, "My fears were the opposite of what the result was," before he admitted that he's "struggling with some fraudulent feelings of receiving love based on a f--- up."
"But, at any rate, I am really, really grateful, and there's so many beautiful, nice people," Shepard added.
Talking about his addiction, he said he began slipping into bad habits around six months ago while dealing with another injury. The actor noticed he started "getting shadier and shadier" when it came to taking pills.
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“For the last eight weeks maybe, I don’t know … I’m on them all day,” the dad of two confessed. "I’m allowed to be on them at some dosage because I have a prescription."
"And then I’m also augmenting that. And then all the prescriptions run out and I’m now just taking 30 mils Oxys that I’ve bought whenever I decide I can do it," he added.
Shepard, who is married to actress Kristen Bell, admitted that he was "lying" to people in his life while taking excessive amounts of pain pills — that he had been prescribed and buying — and carrying around this "enormous secret."
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In a later meeting, he came completely clean. “When it was over,” Shepard said, “I actually, mentally — for the first time in a very long time — felt optimistic.”
Bell talked about her husband’s addiction in July 2016. She told CBS Sunday Morning that she was familiar with the “for better or worse” clause in her marriage to the actor.
“He was an addict for many, many years and he pulled himself out of it, and he’s been sober for 11, 12 years now,” she said. “And he knows many times he’s messed up and how many times he’s been really close to losing everything.
The couple met in 2007 and tied the knot in 2013 and share have two daughters together: Lincoln, 7, and Delta, 5.
Shepard shared that he's still "very proud" of his 16 years of sobriety from alcohol and cocaine, but admitted that he has "not been sober in the way I would like to be sober, where you don’t have secrets and you’re not afraid to tell people about the grey area you’re going through."
