Dax Shepard Apologizes To Kristen Bell for What She’ll Deal With for the Next 6 Months
Dax Shepard admitted to his listeners that he’s had a relapse in his sobriety. After he told his wife, Kristen Bell, about his relapse he devoted the Sept. 25 episode of his Armchair Expert podcast to taking stock and ownership of his relapse. As he explained to his listeners how he fell back into using pain killers, he expressed regret for what he’s about to put Bell through moving forward.
Dax Shepard regrets that Kristen Bell will be dealing with this for six months
Bell and Shepard have always spoken openly about their relationship and family with the press. Shepard felt guilty that coming forward about his relapse would make him the subject of any interview Bell gives for any of her projects in the next half year.
“The other reservation I had about coming clean publicly is ugh, Kristen doesn’t deserve for the next six months for every f*cking interview she does to be oh, Dax relapsed,” Shepard said. “It doesn’t feel fair to anyone. It’s not fair to anyone. I’m sorry and embarrassed I’ve put others in this situation.”
Kristen Bell has been there for Dax Shepard’s moments of need
Shepard detailed how his Vicodin habit began with his 2012 motorcycle accident on the way to the set of Parenthood. Doctors allowed him to take Vicodin as long as Bell controlled the dosage for him. That year, Shepard visited his dying father and took some of his Percocet without supervision. Fortunately, Bell just happened to be there the next day.
“Kristen called me and I was sitting in the parking lot in the car and she said, ‘How’re you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m not doing great. I’m really upset that all these people are visiting and I want alone time with him.’ Of course there’s more that’s going on than that. She says, ‘Don’t worry, it’s okay. Look to your left.’ I look to my left and she’s standing in the parking lot. She has flown on the redeye that night without telling me.”
Kristen Bell put the relapse into perspective
In 2012, Shepard had eight years of sobriety. He still has not taken cocaine or had a drink of alcohol in 16 years as of 2020. However, abusing pills broke his sobriety.
“On the ride from the hospital home, I start crying,” Shepard said. “I say I relapsed, I took blah blah blah. She’s like, ‘You clearly need to call someone in AA but I would say you’re f*cked up from this accident, you got high with your dad, keep it moving. You don’t need to redefine. You didn’t lose eight years.’ Which was really comforting and of course telling her was really comforting.”
Dax Shepard was nervous about coming forward
Shepard often mentioned his 16 years of sobriety on Armchair Expert. For that reason, he felt he had to be honest with his listeners about his most recent relapse.
“[I keep saying,] ‘I have 16 years, I have 16 years, I have 16 years’” Shepard said. “That is something people might aspire to have. Through talking to a really good close friend who said, ‘If you’re being honest in that what you really want to do is helpful is it would be much more helpful to be honest and tell the truth.’”
Shepard said his recent Vicodin prescription from his latest surgery ran out, so he started buying them secretly.
I have a tremendous amount of fear about doing this. One of them is people will maybe bombard me with things I did wrong or judgments of what I should or shuoldn’t have done. Maybe some people will feel a sense of betrayal because we preach honesty and I was being dishonest. I have a fear financially that companies who would want me to represent them would now not. I think the people who already hate me will have a lot of ammo, which of course who cares? Most importantly, but I don’t have it now, but I had it a week ago which is the cornerstone of my self esteem other than the children is that we have this podcast and a lot of people have been inspired to try sobriety based on how open we are about it. I had a huge fear those people would feel misled.
Dax Shepard, Armchair Expert podcast 9/25/2020
