Ben Affleck said he’s “grateful” for the “difficulties” he’s had and said the “only real cure for alcoholism is struggling” as he talked about getting a “second chance” in life.
“There’s a lot that I would want my younger self to understand,” the 49-year-old actor opened up for the December/January Wall Street Journal magazine. The comments were noted by People magazine in a piece published Wednesday. (RELATED: REPORT: Alex Rodriguez Is ‘Shocked’ That Jennifer Lopez Has ‘Moved On’ With Ben Affleck)
“Some things, honestly, that I’m too self-conscious of or shy about to be really candid about with the whole world because they’re mostly mistakes,” he added. “Things I wish I had done differently, and they’re rooted in that instinct to look at my past and think, I wish I could have avoided this painful event. I wish I could have not caused someone else pain. I wish I had understood better the nature of what was difficult about life for me.” (RELATED: Ben Affleck Opens Up About How His Alcoholism Almost Ruined His Family)
“I am very lucky in my life that I have benefited from second chances, and I am aware that other people don’t even get first chances,” says Ben Affleck. https://t.co/ap4xNtOdfL
— WSJ. Magazine (@WSJMag) December 1, 2021
“I wish I did not have to learn some lessons the hard way,” Affleck continued. “But maybe this is just rationalizing because the alternative is too painful. But I’ve come to believe you can’t get there the easy way.
The “Justice League” star explained how the values he has now, most “were born of failure,” as he shared that the “only real cure for alcoholism is suffering.”
“You just hope that your threshold for suffering is met somewhere before it destroys your life,” the superstar actor said and admitted hearing people say how they were “grateful” for their problems used to really irritate him. But not anymore.
“I used to think, ‘This is bullshit. You’re not grateful for disasters, creating pain and wreckage in your life. Say you feel shitty about it and you wish you were better!'” Ben said. “Only within the last five years, I really felt increasingly grateful for the difficulties that I’ve had. It’s not insignificant, because a lot of that pain is rooted in pain caused to other people. And that turns out to be the most painful thing in life.”
Affleck recently has been making headlines after he and Jennifer Lopez confirmed they’d rekindled their romance after the two broke off their engagement in 2004, US Weekly reported.
“I am very lucky in my life in that I have benefited from second chances, and I am aware that other people don’t even get first chances,” the “Gone Girl” star shared. “I’ve had second chances in my career. I’ve had second chances as a human being. Life is difficult, and we are always failing and hopefully learning from those failures.”