Dax Shepard is opening up about his sobriety.
In the Sept. 25 episode of his podcast Armchair Expert, the 45-year-old actor, who had been sober for 16 years, revealed he recently relapsed and had been taking opioids.
While he detailed several of the bumps in the road he experienced over the last eight years, he also spoke about how his life changed following his latest round of injuries, which started six months ago.
"For the last eight weeks maybe, I don't really know…I'm on them all day," Shepard, who had been taking Vicodin for the pain, revealed. "And 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 mil Oxys that I've bought whenever I decide I can do [it]."
Because Shepard, wed to Kristen Bell, was still able to fulfill his day-to-day responsibilities, he didn't think there was an issue. But after his podcast co-host Monica Padman confronted him, he started lying to her.
"And I hate it," he said. "And I'm lying to other people. And I know I have to quit. But my tolerance is going up so quickly that I'm now in a situation where I'm taking, you know, eight 30s a day, and I know that's an amount that's going to result in a pretty bad withdrawal. And I start getting really scared, and I'm starting to feel really lonely. And I just have this enormous secret."
Then, less than two weeks ago, he was sitting in the car with Padman and he decided to tell the truth not only to her, but to his wife, as well. He then started attending AA meetings and began experiencing withdrawal symptoms.
"I'm sweating bullets; I'm jerky; my back kills. It's terrible," he recalled. "I've never detoxed from opiates, and I have so much compassion for these junkies who have, like, f--king cycled through this 20-30 times."
In post shared after the podcast's release, he said he was now on day 11 of his sobriety journey.
"An episode I hoped I'd never have to record, but one I felt I owed to all the beautiful Armcheries who have been on this ride with me for the last couple years," Shepard wrote after the episode aired. "This was Monday, say today is 11."
This wasn't the first time he'd been open about his journey. Scroll on to see some of his powerful comments about sobriety and addiction.