Stephen Amell Says ‘Anxiety’ from Drinking Caused a ‘Yo-Yo of Up and Down’

• Arrow alum Stephen Amell, 43, is looking back on how getting older caused him to change his relationship with alcohol
• The star of the upcoming Suits: LA said that alcohol was giving him “anxiety” — and that now he will go for “long stretches” without drinking
• “My twenties and my thirties are long gone,” he said, saying these days he’d rather get a good night’s sleep

Stephen Amell is looking back on how he’s changed his relationship with alcohol, saying he will “go for long stretches where I don’t drink at all” after realizing it was giving him anxiety.

The Arrow alum spoke candidly on Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast Inside of You — reflecting on a previous appearance on the show when he had an on-air panic attack — and said he had to revisit his drinking and his on-the-go schedule as he got older.

“That anxiety attack was the midst of this transition in my life that I didn’t really want to accept,” Amell, 43, said.”I used to be the guy that would film Arrow until 3:30 in the morning on a Saturday morning, get on a 6 am flight to LA, have a couple of screwdrivers on the flight, get some sleep, and then get back on the Saturday, hang with my family, go out for a nice dinner Saturday night, get up early Sunday morning, especially during football season — go tailgate.”

He said he would have drinks at the tailgate, “then go meet people afterwards, get on the 8:50 pm flight back to Vancouver.”

“But then the difference was that at 5:30 the next morning, I would be up, I would get to the gym, I would get on the treadmill,” Amell added.

The star said the “problem” started “when I lost the ability to do that if for no other reason that I’m f—— not 29 years old anymore.”

“It was like the chemical makeup of my body changed a little bit, and I lost the ability to then get back up, get to the gym. And so as opposed to getting in and sweating it out, this relatively toxic weekend would live with me and just kind of sit in in my system,” Amell, who was in his early 30s when Arrow premiered, said.

“That led to, if you’re not gonna get back up and be healthy, then you kind of continue to be unhealthy,” he continued. “I would go through these periods where stuff like anxiety would be almost entirely connected to a withdrawal from alcohol”.

“I’m not talking, like, delirium,” the Suits: LA star noted, sharing one of the common withdrawal symptoms, but added he had “a little bit of sweats.”

“I was on this roller coaster, and it was just a yo-yo of up and down, and up and down, and up and down, and that becomes really tiresome,” Amell shared.

Rosenbaum asked if the actor quit drinking, to which he said “I didn’t quit drinking entirely. I go for long stretches where I don’t drink at all.”

Amell highlighted that he will “do my best to never touch any hard liquor anymore” saying he will drink “beers, ciders, wine” — and will “make an effort never to really drink around my kids.”

The actor, who shares son Bowen, 2, and daughter Maverick, 11, with wife Cassandra Jean, said it’s easier to abstain entirely, because “I don’t like having a drink. That’s part of the problem.”

“I have an addictive personality. I have a history of alcoholism in my family. So it’s a slippery slope. I’d rather just not get on the slope,” he elaborated.

Since going through periods of abstaining, Amell revealed, “I feel significantly better. I eat better. I look better. I act better.”

“There’s a season for everything,” he said, “and my twenties and my thirties are long gone. I can’t do it anymore. You have to reconcile that — put your ego to the side a little bit, and do what’s going to be best for you personally, professionally, emotionally, physically.”

Now, Amell touted, his relationship with his wife is “considerably better.”

“I love nothing more right now than getting a good night’s sleep,” he shared. “Waking up at 6 o’clock in the morning for an hour by myself before I make my kids breakfast, take my daughter to school. I did school drop off this morning.“

The actor maintained, “I love it way more than I could ever love any mind altering substance.“

Source people.com