Lost star Naveen Andrews has revealed he kicked his drink and drug habit thanks to Sex Pistols star Steve Jones.
The actor, who shot to fame in The English Patient, admitted he became hooked on booze and drugs which spiraled out of control and into an addiction.
But a chance meeting at a dinner party with Jones, who has been clean and sober for 15 years and helps run Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in Los Angeles, put Andrews back on the right road.
Andrews, 39, told US magazine TV Guide: “”I just loved alcohol and drugs.
“Things that happen to you in your childhood, bad experiences, can inform you but they don’t necessarily make you an alcoholic or drug addict.
“You have to put the hours in and really work quite hard at abusing yourself.”
When he was 29, he went to a dinner party in Los Angeles hosted by a friend – and Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones was also there. The punk rocker was a childhood hero on Andrews, who noticed that the musician did not drink or smoke.
Andrews said: “I couldn’t really understand it and I asked him about it.
“I think that’s when the lightbulb went on. I thought: ‘He’s sober. If he can do it, then maybe I have a chance’.”
Andrews opens up to TV Guide about his violent childhood and his personal love life. He also speaks about the racism he faced growing up in London in the 70s and how he no longer speaks to his only brother.
Andrews tells TV Guide: “”I don’t want to make it a sob story. I’m sure plenty of people my age from similar backgrounds had to go through the same thing.
“Wandsworth at that time was quite working class and there was one other Indian family on our street.
“Everyone else was white. It was hard but at the same time I find of preferred the racism from the working class people – they let you know where it’s at straight away – rather than from the middle classes that came later on.”
He tells how his parents moved to the UK from southern India in the late 60s and admits he sees how hard it must have been for them to start a new life in a new country.
Andrews said: “They were both academics but my dad had to get a job on the railway and my mum had to get a job in the post office.
“It was pretty hard in terms of the racism they had to endure.
“Now, I guess I have a lot of sympathy for the fact that they were trying to bring a child up in an alien environment.
“My mum made a conscious decision not to teach me any Indian languages so I wouldn’t talk with an accent.”
Andrews claims his parents were both conservative and strict, even bordering on violent. He told TV Guide: “I think they both had a problem, looking back.
“I think they did the best they could. They would say: ‘The reason we do this is because we love you’.
“They didn’t know any other way.”
To escape his home life, Andrews became interested in acting at school and from there it turned into a career. He landed roles on British TV which in turn led to parts in such movies as The English Patient and The Brave One.
But his parents didn’t live long enough to see Andrews kick his addictions or get nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his role in Lost. Even today, Andrews says he feels the repercussions of his family life – as he has a younger brother but they don’t speak.
He added: “When I was growing up my parents played divide and rule.
“I was errant and he wasn’t. It’s quite sad really. They destroyed our relationship and it made it really difficult for both of us later on to be close.”
Another repercussion of his home life saw Andrews leave home when he was just 15 years old, move that he calls: “A natural consequence of it getting so violent.”
He went to live with his maths teacher and they later embarked on an affair, with his son Jaisal born when he was in his early 20s. By the time the couple split a few years later, Andrews admits he had developed his addictions.
But now he is happy that he has been clean and sober for five years and has a good relationship with his son, who travels to LA from London to stay with him during the school holidays.
Andrews told TV Guide: “If he had to grow up in these crucial teenage years with me being out of it, I don’t know if we’d have a relationship, to be honest.
“As a parent, I am present, which I wasn’t when he was younger.”
Andrews says he is happy these days – and a large part of that is down to his relationship with actress Barbara Hershey. Their romance raised eyebrows when they first got together because at 60 she is she is 21 years older than him.
He moved to LA ten years ago to be with her and even though the couple split briefly a few years ago, during which time Andrews had another young son, now two, with another woman, they are now stronger than ever.
Andrews, who sees his other son regularly, added: “I think I may have failed at a lot of things but the one thing I can say and that I’m proud of, is that I am a good parent.
“The great lesson I got from my parents is how not to treat your children.
“To break that chain, even if I don’t do anything else, at least I’ve done that.”
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