Josh Peck says sobriety has been “wonderful” and a “foundation that has kept me really anchored.”
The “Drake & Josh” star, 35, developed a drug and alcohol problem after dropping 127 pounds and entered rehab in 2008.
“I’m lucky to have found recovery through a 12 steps program almost 14 years ago and it’s something that I still do regularly to this day,” he told Page Six in a recent interview. “It gives me a lot of structure in my life. It’s really the bedrock of my life and from it, all these wonderful things have been built.”
The Manhattan-born actor who wrote about his battle with drugs and alcohol in the memoir, “Happy People Are Annoying,” explained that sobriety has also “introduced me to a level of spirituality and how to embrace stoicism and ancient truths. It’s given me a foundation that has kept me really anchored.”
Peck jokingly added that his mother — who raised him by herself — and his wife Paige O’Brien “make sure I don’t get out of line.”
The Nickelodeon alum can currently be seen as a Rabbi helping a congregant prepare for his bar-mitzvah in the Netflix movie, “13: The Musical” and says that he is “incredibly proud to be Jewish. I think it’s something that as I get older has become more important to me.”
One reason Peck was eager to take a role in the movie was to work with director Tamra Davis, who directed the documentary, “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child” about the artist who died of a heroin overdose in 1988.
“Jean-Michel Basquait is a personal hero of mine,” he explained, “so selfishly I just knew I would be nagging her on set asking her for Basquait stories.”
It’s also a busy time in Peck’s personal life.
He and O’Brien are expecting their second child together and are already parents to a 3-year-old son, Max. Peck confesses that before Max’s birth he was terrified to become a father, having never met his own.
“Having a father in so many ways would have hopefully given me structure or a manual on being a dad,” he shared, “but thankfully, I had enough apostles in my life, my father-in-law, who I really look up to, and my brother from the Big Brother Jewish Foundation, Dan, who has been in my life since I was 8. I’m so lucky to have great men in my life that I could go to for counsel and advice and mirror the things they did so well with their kids.”
