Michael J. Fox Reveals He Started "Drinking Heavily" After Parkinson's Diagnosis

Star of upcoming new sitcom based on his own life tells Howard Stern that he felt like he was having "a knife fight in a closet" for about a year before life got good again

By Natalie Finn Sep 26, 2013 3:08 AMTags
Michael J. FoxYoutube

Having already offered up some of the most personal parts of grappling with Parkinson's disease for his new sitcom, Michael J. Fox apparently figured he could go one step further.

So he visited The Howard Stern Show.

Talking about when he was first diagnosed with Parkinson's when he was 29, the now 52-year-old actor revealed during his sit-down with Howard Stern this morning that his "first reaction to it was to start drinking heavily."

"I used to drink to party," Fox recalled, "but...now I was drinking alone and to just not be [present]. Every day."

"So once I did that," he continued, "then there was about a year of, like, a knife fight in a closet, where I just didn't have my tools to deal with it. Then after that, I went into therapy and it all started to get really clear to me."

Fox said that he learned that you have to "take it one day at a time."

"And then everything started to really turn the other way," he added. "My marriage got great, and my career..."

Howard guessed that Fox's marriage got great after the actor realized that his wife (Tracy Pollan, whom he married in 1988 and has four children with) really had his back.

"Exactly," Fox agreed, adding—in response to Stern's inevitable question about their sex life—that "sex is great."

"The only thing about sex," he cracked, "is deciding who's going to be the agent of motion."