My Biggest Regret - Ben Comes Clean

The a-lister’s cleaning up his act

It’s been a long way back for Ben Affleck. After struggling with addiction, a marriage breakdown and a few bumps in the road with his newfound sobriety, the Gone Girl star has finally found his balance, and says that honesty truly is the best policy.

The actor has given two in-depth interviews about his battles with booze, detailing his descent into despair and his biggest regrets, through to what motivates him to remain on the straight and narrow.

“People with compulsive behaviour, and I am one, have this kind of basic discomfort all the time that they’re trying to make go away,” he explains. “You’re trying to make yourself feel better with eating or drinking or sex or gambling or shopping or whatever. But that ends up making your life worse. Then you do more of it to make that discomfort go away. Then the real pain starts. It becomes a vicious cycle you can’t break. At least that’s what happened to me.”

Ben says he used to be able to drink “normally” for a long time – but when his marriage to actress Jennifer Garner ( 47) started to crumble, he found he was relying on the bottle more than he should have been.