John Goodman has opened up about the compulsive eating that pushed him toward 400 pounds after he got sober.
The 74-year-old actor, now down 200 pounds, told The New Yorker in an interview published Sunday that his weight spiraled when he tried to fill the void left by alcohol. “I was eating alcoholically after I stopped drinking,” Goodman said. He had quit drinking in 2007 at age 55, but the behavioral patterns simply shifted to food.
“I’d lose 60 pounds in a summer, gain it all back — 70 pounds, 80 pounds — and that got tiring,” he continued. “I took steps so I wouldn’t have to do that anymore. I was almost 400 pounds.”
Goodman traced his drinking back to a desire to prolong his youth. He told the outlet he was “really immature” and that alcohol only “sustained that immaturity,” adding, “I wanted to live in ‘Animal House’ the whole time.” The cycle of dependency wore him down physically and mentally. “I got sick and tired of being sick and tired,” he shared.
“The thing about instant gratification is you don’t really care [about] what’s going to happen right after it — which always led to bigger hangovers or me getting the shakes, and having to drink to get rid of the shakes, and that vicious cycle,” Goodman explained. His condition deteriorated to the point where medical intervention became unavoidable. “I was in a position when I quit where I had to be hospitalized one way or the other. I just was tired of it, and I wanted to stop.”
The “Roseanne” alum came to see drinking as a barrier to personal growth. “I was delaying my maturation by drinking, and I had a lot of catching up to do, just realizing how selfish it made me,” he said. He described the revelation of sobriety as discovering a life he did not need substances to endure. He had been “overlooking real life,” and found it “great to see there was a life where [he] didn’t have to use anything to enjoy it.”
Goodman eventually underwent stomach surgery to address his weight, but the procedure brought complications. “I also turned anemic and lost a layer of fat under my skin, and I’m cold all the time,” he said.
His physical transformation has drawn public attention at multiple events. Goodman posed with his wife, Anna Beth, at the Los Angeles premiere of “Digger,” wearing a black suit with a striped button-down shirt and gray tie. Earlier this year, he appeared at the Los Angeles premiere of “Smurfs” in a navy blue suit, white collared shirt, patterned black tie and brown loafers. Social media users called him “unrecognizable” in August when “Wizards of Waverly Place” star David DeLuise shared a selfie with him on Instagram.
The “Monsters, Inc.” star had previously outlined his regimen to People in 2010, citing a personal trainer, sugar elimination and six-day-a-week workouts. “I know it sounds sappy, but it was a waste,” he said of his sedentary period. “It takes a lot of creative energy to sit on your ass and figure out what you’re going to eat next … I wanted to live life better.”
Goodman’s candor about swapping one addiction for another adds a rarely discussed dimension to celebrity weight-loss narratives, particularly the challenge of managing compulsive behavior after removing its original object.
