Jason Bateman Recalls Sobriety ‘Negotiations’ With Wife Amanda

In a recent interview, Horrible Bosses star Jason Bateman opened up about his sobriety journey and how his initial plans came with negotiations with his wife, Amanda Anka. Before this, Bateman had a very rough lifestyle, where he regularly indulged in drugs and alcohol.

Jason Bateman details discussions he had with wife Amanda about sobriety

Jason Bateman broke out as a child star in NBC’s Little House on the Prairie. Since his exposure to stardom in his younger years, the actor got into a habit of partying with alcohol and drugs.

“Fortunately, I was living at a time without social media and camera phones,” Bateman explained. He revealed to The Hollywood Reporter in a new interview, “So I got away with a lot, but it was definitely close a few times.”

But the actor soon found more steady work. In 2001, he married Amanda Anka, and that brought forth the question of his sobriety.

“Amanda and I definitely had a few negotiations about the point at which the [partying] spigot was going to completely turn off,” he revealed about the plans of going clean. He added, “She’d be like, ‘This drip, drip, drip is annoyingly unpredictable, Jason.’”

He continued, “She didn’t demand that I completely absolve, but that was sort of the back-and-forth, and I was like, well, I feel like my [sobriety] ETA is six months away, but if I could land this plane now, it would alleviate a lot of the tension, so let’s just f**king do it.”

Deep down, Bateman always knew that his party days would have to end. This is, if he were to continue working in the industry. “I was conscious the whole time of wanting to get a lot of these boxes checked before I became a father,” he added, “and a guy with a career that I not only wanted but had a feeling I might be able to get it if I just got the right job.”

He went on to express that he felt lucky he did not hit the bottom that many of his friends did. “I’ve got friends who had bottoms that were pretty chilling,” he revealed. “But I was lucky enough to recognize, ‘This is probably as far as I should go if I still want to accomplish the things that I want to get to” He added.

The actor concluded, “Were it not for some of that cliff-hanging earlier in my career, I don’t know if I’d be as good as I am at the caretaking of these opportunities…But I have seen and felt what it is like to really not have a lot of prospects, and it keeps you hungry.”

Source: Comingsoon.net