Ben Affleck Says He’d Probably Still Be Drinking If He Never Split From Jennifer Garner
I can personally think of better holiday gifts Ben Affleck could give his ex-wife, like a new blender or maybe even a nice new couch (as you’ll understand in a moment). But Ben Affleck decided to give Jennifer Garner the gift of a public story about how his current sobriety would be but a dream, should he have never gotten divorced from her.
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner were married for about ten years until they announced they were calling it quits in 2015. Two years later, Jen finally got around to filing for divorce, and in 2018 they were officially over and done with each other. During that time, Ben had struggles with alcohol. He’s been open and honest with his alcoholism, and he did two stints in rehab for his booze issues after he split from Jennifer Garner (one visit happened right before Jen filed those divorce papers, and the next happened in 2018 after Jen staged an intervention for him). Ben Affleck recently spoke to Howard Stern about his journey to get sober, and he says that a whole lot of his drinking came from feeling miserable, which was the product of being married. via People magazine:
“I’d probably still be drinking. It’s part of why I started drinking…because I was trapped,” the Argo director admitted to Howard Stern of feeling unhappy in his marriage to Garner. “I was like ‘I can’t leave ’cause of my kids, but I’m not happy, what do I do?’ What I did was drink a bottle of scotch and fall asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution.”
And he adds that both of them tried to make it work, it just didn’t, and that’s when shit got bad. via People:
“The truth was, we took our time, we made the decision. We grew apart. We had a marriage that didn’t work, this happens, with somebody that I love and respect, but to whom I shouldn’t be married any longer. Ultimately, we tried. We tried, we tried because we had kids. Both of us felt like we don’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage.”
It should be noted that around the time Ben and Jen finally decided to end their marriage, there was no end to the rumors that Ben was banging their nanny. So, something tells me Jennifer Garner is about to let out a little “Well bless his heart” over this.
Of course, there’s no right way to do addiction, in the same way, there’s no right way to do sobriety, but once again it should be noted that Jennifer Garner was pushing hard for Ben to get himself to rehab, and quite literally drove his ass there. There were also reports that the reason it took so long for Ben and Jen to finalize their divorce three years after they split, was because she was worried about his attempts to stay clean, and she wanted to make sure he was sober sober before she released him into the world. So blaming her isn’t the best look. Also, I’d argue that if it’s not necessarily a guarantee he’d still be drinking if he stayed with Jennifer Garner. Something tells me she still would have pushed hard for his recovery. But I do know if he was still with Jennifer Garner, there would be a 100% chance he’d be woken up from a nap to her yelling, “Ben? Get in here! We’ve got a cat turd code 10 situation and I need you to hold the soap!”
Pic: Wenn.com