Jane Lynch is getting honest about her sobriety journey.
In an interview with The Guardian on Wednesday, Feb. 16, the Glee star, 61, described her struggles with alcohol addiction after relapsing years ago and shared what inspired her to stop drinking for a second time.
The actress revealed that she first began drinking as a teenager, a habit that carried on throughout her early career and into her 30s.
"The first time you [have a drink], it's like: ‘Ah, I found it. I feel happy in my body, this feeling of bliss. No one can say anything to me that would make me upset or feel badly about myself right now,'" she recounted to the outlet. "And then maybe the next time you drink, you get it again. Before you know it, it's not doing it for you. So, for the most part, when I was in the throes of addiction, it wasn't working."
Lynch shared she continued to heavily drink until one day she felt "a kind of magical lifting of my compulsion to drink" and joined Alcoholics Anonymous.
"I just loved AA," she reflected. "It was very much a gift; it was almost like I was struck sober."
Following years of career success and therapy, the actress, who stars on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, thought that she could try drinking again and, as she put it, "I loved it."
"I became a connoisseur of wine in a way that only an alcoholic can," she shared. "I went back into denial, after all those years of sobriety and self-knowledge. I fooled myself—I woke up one day and went: ‘I'm back.'"
She continued, "I was tied to this thing again, to some hope of what it was going to do for me, and the rest of the day didn't matter. The only part of the day that really mattered was five o'clock."
When asked what brought her back to drinking, Lynch said it was partly due to "boredom," adding, "I think I got to a point where nothing was doing it for me any more."
She said she drank while starring in Paramount+'s The Good Fight, which she appeared in from 2017 to 2021.
"I couldn't wait to be done and go have a drink by myself," she said. "I was a little ashamed, and also the denial, the justifications."
Lynch explained that even her friends were "fooled," saying, "I remember a friend said: ‘I told you you're not an alcoholic anymore.' I'd go: ‘I know!'"
The actress shared that it took six months after relapsing to officially stop drinking again. She described the similar, otherworldly effect she felt the first time, "Like the sober fairy said: ‘OK, I'm giving you one more chance.'"
"And it was over," she said. "Five o'clock would come and I didn't notice it."