“Landman” star Billy Bob Thornton has been sober for years and managed it all on his own.
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 07: Billy Bob Thornton attends 2025 Newport Beach TV Fest at Lido Theater on June 07, 2025 in Newport Beach, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images)
On the “After Dinner Thinks with Ann Wilson” podcast, he explained, “I was a drug addict. I quit drugs when I was 24. I did everything. I even was on morphine for a while, ’cause I had a nurse friend.”
But he hit a rock bottom and realized he needed to do something, recalling, “I’m glad I quit when I did. Because I was this skinny little long-haired hippie, working as a roadie, and I looked in the mirror on an airstream trailer one day and said, ‘You’re gonna die. You have to stop.’”
Thornton revealed he had to quit cold turkey.
“Back then they didn’t have programs and support groups and things like that,” he said. “I quit on my own. I sweated it out for about four days.”
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – NOVEMBER 18: Billy Bob Thornton attends the 2025 BMI Country Awards at BMI on November 18, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images)
While Thornton is happy he quit all drugs, he does believe there are lingering positive effects from one substance he tried in his youth: psychedelics.
He revealed he tried acid and “didn’t like it. I didn’t have good trips. And I kept doing it ’cause everybody else was doing it.”
However, he added, “I do believe it did unlock my mind to be a better artist. I honestly believe that psychedelics helped me as a writer and as an artist in general.”
While the “Bad Santa” actor feels those experiences happened to “another person” because he’s changed so much since then he believes the effect of the drug is “still around.”
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – JUNE 19: Actor Billy Bob Thornton attends the 4th Annual Critics’ Choice Television Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on June 19, 2014 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Critics’ Choice Television Awards)
“It’s so funny to think about those days, ’cause it almost seems like another person to me. But I think it still resonates, and the residue of it is still around,” he said.
Thornton added, “And I’m not sure Paul McCartney and John Lennon were wrong when they said doing acid and opening their minds up did help them with whatever [song] it was.”