Child-star-turned-adult-heartthrob Josh Peck revealed his past addiction to drugs, alcohol and food Wednesday.
Peck, 35, who has been sober since 2008, once weighed nearly 300 pounds while filming hit Nickelodeon show “Drake and Josh,” according to PageSix. Peck starred on the hit show from 2004 to 2007, BestLife reported, before going on to an up-and-down film and television career. (RELATED: No Major Hollywood Film Has Made China The Villain Since The ‘Red Dawn’ Remake Bowed Down To The CCP)
Peck went on to say that he was teased relentlessly for being an overweight, musical theater kid with “no social status,” according to People. Comedy became Peck’s natural defense mechanism for his weight until he spent a year and a half on a religious exercise and diet regime that led to him losing 127 pounds.
YOO Josh Peck on How I Met Your Father?? wtf happened to this dude damn pic.twitter.com/oU2MiGV8sR
— Advit (@rebelmooned) January 25, 2022
“It became clear that once I lost the weight that I was the same head in a new body,” Peck explained. “What is really clear is that I overdo things. And then I discovered drugs and alcohol. And that became my next chapter. I used food and drugs to numb my feelings.”
Peck started using drugs like cocaine as a teenager and continued to experiment with alcohol and drugs into his 20s, the outlet reported. “It was really a buffet,” Peck described. “I had this illusion of becoming more confident and attractive when I was partaking.”
Instead, Peck’s addictions led to him developing an “unstable and erratic” reputation in Hollywood. “I had worked so hard for this thing and I was getting very close to losing it,” Peck told People. He subsequently checked into a treatment program, which led to his roughly 14 years of sobriety.
“I was always looking for something outside to fix my insides,” Peck told People, “but eventually I realized that whether my life was beyond my wildest dreams or a total mess, it didn’t change the temperature of what was going on in my mind. I knew that nothing in the outside world would make me feel whole.”