John Goodman reveals how booze led him to weighing 400 pounds: ‘I WAS EATING ALCOHOLICALLY’
The 74-year-old battled alcoholism for decades before getting sober in 2007
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John Goodman weighed nearly 400 pounds when he finally decided he had to make a change because his life literally depended on it.
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It’s not like he hadn’t tried to lose weight before, but like with many, if not most, people, it was a vicious cycle of losing pounds, then gaining even more back.
“I’d lose 60 pounds in a summer, gain it all back. Seventy pounds, 80 pounds. And that got tiring,” he told the New Yorker. “I took steps so I wouldn’t have to do that anymore. I was almost 400 pounds.”
Goodman, 74, battled alcoholism for decades before getting sober in 2007, but leading up to that, he detailed his complicated relationship with food and booze and how the two even became interchangeable.
“I was eating alcoholically after I stopped drinking.”
Grow up or give up
The Roseanne star admitted that his drinking “sustained” his “immaturity” — which he says contributed to the cheery characters he was often cast as.
But enough was enough, and when he got sober at 55, he realized his “big kid” mentality was going to have to change in some ways.
“If I did [think about losing the ‘happy guy’ onscreen persona], it was a secondary thought, because I was saving my life at that point,” Goodman said, adding that he was ready to do “whatever it took to stay sober.”
‘Instant gratification’
“The thing about instant gratification is you don’t really care what’s going to happen right after it — which always led to bigger hangovers or me getting the shakes, and having to drink to get rid of the shakes, and that vicious cycle,” he told TheNew Yorker.
“I was in a position, when I quit, where I had to be hospitalized one way or the other. I just was tired of it, and I wanted to stop,” the Big Lebowski actor continued.
“I was delaying my maturation by drinking, and I had a lot of catching up to do, just realizing how selfish it made me. I was overlooking real life,” he shared. “And it was great to see there was a life where I didn’t have to use anything to enjoy it.”
Chill out
That said, Goodman hasn’t given up all the things and midway through his New Yorker interview, the reporter claimed the Righteous Gemstones actor had to take a vape break.
Goodman is still learning how to just relax, something he references numerous times in the sit-down, even scolding himself for not being able to “loosen up.”
“There’s been a lot of therapy,” he said. “I’m happy now. I just wish I was better spoken and I could relax more. The best stuff happens when I’m relaxed.”
Staying healthy
Goodman has a low-impact fitness routine he follows after fracturing his hip last year, an injury he suffered on the set of Digger that sidelined him for a month.
He told the publication that he’s been working on “building up the core, balance, strength training, stuff like that, so I don’t fall down.”
The only downside to his weight loss came after he had an operation on his stomach.
“I also turned anemic and lost a layer of fat under my skin, and I’m cold all the time.”
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