Gary Oldman is crediting his nearly three decades of sobriety with saving his life.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter published August 18, the Oscar-winning actor opened up about his struggles with alcohol and how putting it behind him has shaped everything from his personal life to his career.

“I’m in a very good place at the moment, and a lot of that is to do with sobriety,” Oldman shared. “It’s been 28 years. There was a point when I didn’t think I could’ve gone 28 seconds without a drink.”

The Harry Potter alum admitted that, like many of his idols, he once romanticised self-destructive behaviour.

“My heroes — literary heroes, film heroes, theater heroes, athletic heroes, musical heroes — they were all sorts of drunks and drug addicts. They were all tortured poets and artists. You look up to them and you romanticise and want to emulate them.”

Still, the Dark Knight star said his drinking didn’t begin with Hemingway or Burton, but as a “social norm” that spiralled. He recalled glamorising stories of Richard Burton performing Hamlet drunk and believing it gave an “edge.”

But with distance, Oldman sees it differently. “It’s just an excuse, really, and you’re just kidding yourself,” he said. “My own life, my personal life, is immeasurably better from just not living in a fog. Going at the rate I was going, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you by now. I’d either be dead or institutionalised.”