A Life-Saving Passion: How Sex and the City Saved Kristin Davis from Alcoholism
Wildly popular for her role as the prude, hopeless romantic Charlotte York Goldenblatt from the classic HBO sitcom Sex and the City, it is almost impossible to picture Kristin Davis having a blast at a party, completely intoxicated with alcohol.
And when we say intoxicated, we mean the wasted kind of intoxicated.
Far from her prim-and-proper image in the sitcom, the Sex and the City star actually had a hidden, toxic relationship with alcohol for most of her teenage to adult years.
The cure – or curse – for shyness
At first, the actress had shown little to no relationship with drinking ever since she enjoyed the spotlight of the film industry. Whenever she went out with her co-stars in the sitcom, she would often refuse to take any alcoholic drinks that were being offered to her.
But despite not having any past controversies with regards to alcohol, she openly labeled herself as a “recovering alcoholic” and even claimed that she never believed that she could “make it to 30.”
Why does she think that way?
Her answer is simple: it is something connected to her past.
Born on the 14th of February in 1965, the Colorado native had a rough time growing up. She witnessed her parents getting divorced at a very young age and for a while, she was left all alone but was later adopted by Keith Davis, who was a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Because of her past experiences, the young Davis grew up to be very shy and reserved, rarely sharing her interests with the people of her age. She would often choose the company of herself rather than others’, keeping her love for acting all to herself.
It was at the age of only 9 years old when she first got into acting. The star-in-the-making used to attend a workshop theater for Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs where she focused on developing her acting skills in this early stage of her life.
However, while growing up, things started to go in a downward spiral for the actress. Davis was introduced to alcohol during her teenage years in South Carolina. According to her, drinking “helped” her deal with her “awkwardness” and “insecurities” when she was young – a feeling that she developed mainly due to her parents breaking up.
Davis went on to continue this kind of lifestyle throughout her teenage life. This caused her to perform horribly in her high school years, academically and personally.
Carrying this alcoholic tendency in the bag until college, Davis eventually enrolled to get a BFA degree in acting at Mason Gross School of the Arts’, Rutgers University, during the year 1987.
An alcohol-infused career
Things just keep getting worse for the aspiring actress from there.
She would often skip school to go out and drink, and if she attended, she would be too hungover to function correctly.
During this time, Davis’ dream to become a successful actress seemed to be crumbling apart.
It was at this stage of her life that she realized that she only had two choices of a life to live: her addiction with alcohol or her passion for acting.
Recalling such crossroads in her life, Davis went on to say, “I thought, it’s going to be one or the other. I can’t really have both.”
Davis as a result voluntarily checked herself in rehab during her early 20’s, convinced to take a step to make things better.
Though she struggled at first, the young actress went on to succeed in her battle with alcoholism and at the age of only 22 years old, she believes that she had a lot of time left to get her act together – making a choice regarding her dilemma head on.
…and she has never been so right in her life.
Lasting Recovery
Shortly after she graduated, Davis moved out to New York and quickly earned a spot in her first acting gig for General Hospital, where she played a character of Nurse Betty Chilson who was just a minor character in the soap opera.
Her stint as a minor character didn’t last long as her career was significantly followed by more acting gigs, bagging more roles during the 90’s and had steadily worked her way to the top as she performed in different TV shows and films alike including Friends (1994-2004), Seinfield (1989 – 1998), Atomic Train (1999), and Melrose Place (1992 -1999) to name a few.
It wasn’t long enough until she got herself the ticket to stardom when she got her iconic role in the romantic comedy sitcom Sex and the City in 1998.
Twenty years after choosing to be sober, the actress went on to have an amazing ride in the showbiz industry. She still consciously keeps an eye on herself when it comes to alcohol because she believes that anyone could go back to their past lifestyle if not monitored properly.
While she still claims to “miss alcohol”, the now sobered-up actress does nothing about it as drinking is “not worth the risk.”
Even though she had been in a terrible place during her early days, she is still thankful for everything that happened to her. She said that she was “lucky” because she underwent such things before she got into the world of acting which is highly notorious on people who are facing drinking problems similar to the situation she experienced.
Davis now pays forward her recovery story, encouraging people who have problems with alcohol addiction or other substance abuse to share their experiences along the way.
In an interview SirusXM, the actress left a few words to live by:
“Everyone who is in that place or who is struggling with mental health, anxiety or depression thinks that they are in it alone, because that’s part of the disease. But you never know what other people are going through and you never know what people had gone through in the past.”
Just like the rest, Davis had her moments where she felt all alone. She had moments where she felt like she wanted to go back to her former lifestyle. She had moments where she wanted to abandon her progress and throw it all away.
But it is this one, simply thought that kept her sober, and stayed that way: it is not worth it.
How about you? Do you also have struggles with alcohol you’ve always wanted to talk about? We are listening to you – feel free to share your thoughts into our comment section.
Leave a Reply