Jonathan Rhys Meyers has said that he is not an alcoholic but rather has an ‘allergy’ to alcohol. The actor was detained by police at LAX Airport earlier this month for using an e-cigarette on a flight and after a "verbal dispute" with his wife Mara.
Meyers, best-known for his role on ‘The Tudors’, said to Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine that he ‘let himself down’ by relapsing, and added: “I’ve never continuously drunk for any long period of time – I actually don’t like the taste of alcohol.”
He told the publication: “I would be known as somebody who relapses with problem drinking, not alcoholism. I don’t suffer from alcoholism – I suffer from an allergy to alcohol every time I drink it. But once I stop, I never think about it again.
“That doesn’t mean that the problem is any less, it just means I have a different version of it. But when I drink, the consequences are so devastating that it is a problem. But I never need a drink. It’s not something that I crave.”
Meyers also spoke about 'triggers' in the interview, saying: "People who go through this, they look for things in their life that trigger them. And airports are a trigger for me, because they make you sit there for three hours, you can’t smoke and you’re surrounded by alcohol. That is not an excuse however... There’s never an excuse for me to drink. But sometimes there are triggers that make you more vulnerable. I’ve relearnt that vulnerability and it’s now fresh in my mind again."
He insisted that straight after the flight, from Peru, he ‘learned his lesson’ and ‘went straight back to meetings and got sober immediately.’
The actor has broken his sobriety a number of times over the years, most recently in September when his wife Mara confirmed that he relapsed after she had a miscarriage.
