{"id":786590,"date":"2026-05-10T13:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T13:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/786590\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T13:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T13:12:13","slug":"i-was-in-a-terrible-state-actor-david-morrissey-tells-how-social-anxiety-led-him-to-alcoholism-david-morrissey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/786590\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I was in a terrible state\u2019: actor David Morrissey tells how social anxiety led him to alcoholism | David Morrissey"},"content":{"rendered":"

The actor David Morrissey<\/a> has spoken of how \u201cterrible\u201d social anxiety contributed to him becoming an alcoholic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a recovering alcoholic,\u201d Morrissey, who has been sober for 21 years, told Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4\u2019s Desert Island Discs<\/a>. \u201cDrinking first was about anxiety. I\u2019ve had this terrible social anxiety and that helped me get through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he started drinking in his teenage years after the death of his father and then \u201cin my adult life, I couldn\u2019t stop. I wasn\u2019t drinking to be convivial. I was on my own in the pub. That was really hard and very hard for my ex-wife and people around me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morrissey, 61, is regarded as one of the UK\u2019s most versatile actors whose many TV, film and stage roles have included the ruthless, monstrous Governor in The Walking Dead<\/a>, Gordon Brown in The Deal<\/a> and a dedicated detective in James Graham\u2019s Sherwood.<\/p>\n

Born in Liverpool, he grew up on a new council estate in Knotty Ash after the family\u2019s back-to-back terrace house was demolished. The first of his desert island discs was You\u2019ll Never Walk Alone by Gerry and the Pacemakers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His father died when Morrissey was just 15. Joe Morrissey, a cobbler, was 54 when he suffered a fatal haemorrhage after a long-term and terminal blood disorder.<\/p>\n

Morrissey told Laverne that he was in a \u201cterrible state\u201d after the death of his father, and reflected on the \u201ctrauma responses\u201d \u2013 depression and anxiety \u2013 that followed.<\/p>\n

He left school at 16 and spent six months travelling with a theatre company called Zip, based in Wolverhampton.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that, academically, I was never going to be able to go to university or anything \u2013 that was never going to happen to me,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I had to make it happen somewhere else.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard for my mum, but I knew I had to cut the strings and find independence. They say that hyper-independence is a trauma response. I do tend to cut off sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He got sober after calling a former colleague he knew was in Alcoholics Anonymous and whose number he had kept for two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in a terrible, terrible state, and I phoned him quite late, early in the morning time. He came round my house and just sat with me. And I\u2019ve not drank since that day, really. So, it\u2019s been tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morrissey added: \u201cWhen I stopped drinking, I didn\u2019t stop being an alcoholic. My behaviour was still very self-destructive for many years.\u201d He said his career \u201crescued\u201d him and that it makes him \u201cfeel safe\u201d.<\/p>\n

Morrissey said he was drawn to being an actor after watching an episode of the 1970s TV drama Colditz, starring Michael Bryant<\/a>, during which the main character \u201cpretended to go mad in order to escape\u201d from a situation.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThat troubled me. It really upset me. I identified with him, his character, his situation, and that sort of thing that bubbled up inside me. I wanted to find out how to control that or understand it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went looking for acting, I went looking for a way out.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWhen I\u2019m in work, I feel safe. Not necessarily in control, but I feel it\u2019s where I should be in my life. In my life, I\u2019m less confident. I\u2019m always looking for an exit strategy in every situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m much better nowadays, but for a long time I was really telling myself I wasn\u2019t enough and all that stuff, and that added to the alcoholism, and the inability to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The actor David Morrissey has spoken of how \u201cterrible\u201d social anxiety contributed to him becoming an alcoholic. \u201cI…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":786591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-786590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116550457836193806","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}