Butch Patrick opens up on struggles to reach sobriety after years of child stardom
Butch Patrick struggled to "make the commitment to sobriety" after child stardom because it helped him fit in on the Hollywood scene.
Butch Patrick struggled to "make the commitment to sobriety" after child stardom.
The 71-year-old actor was just nine years old when he was cast as child werewolf Eddie Munster on the CBS comedy series 'The Munsters' and explained that once he came of age and started drinking in Hollywood circles, he "felt accepted" in a way he never had done before but struggled to cut it out altogether in the years that followed.
He told Fox News Digital: "I couldn’t wait to go out and party, and when I did party, it allowed me to be accepted by my peers because I never really felt comfortable being in the Hollywood scene.
"I had a couple of friends who had gotten sober that I would call every once in a while after a bad bender or a week down, and then I’d sort of tiptoe around.
"But I wouldn’t drop the rock and make the commitment."
The former 'I Dream of Jeannie' star - whose real name is Patrick Alan Lilley - explained that he never "hit bottom" with his alcoholism but just got to a point where he was fed up of being "sick and tired" and 14 years later, he has realised just how much he has "gained" in giving up the booze.
He said: "I never really hit bottom to the point where I didn't have money and I didn't have a house, you know, I wasn't like in an alley with a brown paper bag type of thing. But I knew that I was really sick and tired of being sick and tired. You know, I was tired of feeling like crap.
"My life improved dramatically very quick that I took to it like a fish to water and never looked back and helping others and giving, you know, paying it forward is just what I do now. And I'm sure that I wouldn't be with friends, with a lot of the wonderful people that I am friends with now had I not done it. So, I gave up a little bit, but I gained a whole lot."
