Josh Brolin Celebrates 8 Years of Sobriety: 'Thank You God, Family, and Friends'

Josh Brolin
Josh Brolin

Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic

Josh Brolin is celebrating a special milestone.

On Monday, the 53-year-old actor marked eight years of sobriety. In honor of the day, Brolin shared a photo of his younger self on Instagram and thanked "God, family, and friends" for helping him get there.

"Sobriety is finally loving without every thought being about how it affects only you," he wrote. "Sobriety is a moment of being able to love and be consumed by the glee it brings someone else. Sobriety is knowing the difference between selfishness and integrity. Sobriety is knowing that God is in everything and that it is made up of every color (and mixture of color) that exists. Sobriety is knowing the moon late at night when she was there for you in your toughest hour and, now, again, her witnessing your greatest joys. Sobriety is climbing in your truck for a 6am call after 8 years of sobriety and there being a card from your wife telling you how grateful she is for you having made the decision to put it down and to live instead accompanied by a collage board of your children — what was created because of that decision."

He continued, "And sobriety is when your children look at you and trust what they see (you can see it in their pupils, and the way they stand before you) — that they know they are not being cultivated into some idea but celebrated for the original garden they are growing into. Sobriety is about living better than your remembrance of what your greatest drunk ever was — an everyday malleability into gratitude for what is. None of this is deserved. All of it is perception. Thank you God, family, and friends for the most punk rock sobriety imaginable."

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The Avengers: Endgame star entered rehab for substance abuse in 2013 after several public altercations in which he appeared to be intoxicated. In the same year, he split from his ex-wife, actress Diane Lane, in February after eight years of marriage.

During an interview with The Guardian at the time, the Oscar nominee admitted that it was a "turning point."

"It made me think of a lot of things. My mom dying when I was in my 20s. All the impact that had on me that I hadn't moved past; I was always such a momma's boy," he said. "But I realized that I was on a destructive path. I knew that I had to change and mature. It was like I stepped back and saw the hamster wheel."

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Brolin shares daughters Westlyn Reign, 3, and Chapel Grace, 10 months, with wife Kathryn Brolin. He is also dad to his two adult children, Trevor Brolin and Eden Brolin, whom he shares with ex-wife Alice Adair.

Next month, Brolin will celebrate another milestone: his youngest daughter's first birthday. He and his wife welcomed Chapel on Christmas last year.

"Everywhere we have traveled the one place Kathryn and I found a great solace in were chapels. Not being particularly religious but a God feeling has heavily inundated our lives and chapels have always been sanctuaries where we felt connectedly free to gives thanks. Chapel Grace is, to us, a manifestation of that celestial feeling that was always felt as we meandered and knelt," the father of four wrote on Instagram announcing her birth.