Newly sober Colton Haynes: I was once placed on 5150 psychiatric hold
Colton Haynes is putting his health first. The Teen Wolf alum revealed in a new interview that he is six months sober after undergoing four months of treatment.
“In 10 years, there were maybe 25 days I didn’t drink,” Haynes, 30, admitted to Attitude in the magazine’s 25th anniversary issue, published on Thursday, March 28. “I remember when I started, it was a couple glasses of wine, and it regressed into really dark times. I used to blame it on my anxiety or depression issues, but really the root of all my problems was the alcohol and drugs.”
The actor turned to substances after he came out as gay in 2016 and found himself struggling with the newfound attention on his personal life.
“I came out and, in a way, my downward spiral started,” he said. “I felt extremely free but at the same time the amount of attention I was getting was making me spin out of control.”
Haynes’ battle with addiction worsened in early 2018 when his mother, Dana Denise Mitchell, died from advanced cirrhosis of the liver. A few months later, he filed for divorce from celebrity floral designer Jeff Leatham after six months of marriage.
“I got married and that didn’t work out. That was extremely public and heartbreaking, and right when that was going on, my mom died,” he told Attitude. “At that point I fell apart. My brain broke. … I got so heavily involved with drugs and alcohol to mask the amount of pain I was feeling that I couldn’t even make some decisions for myself. I was drowning in my own s–t.”
At that point, the Arrow star said he had already been hospitalized several times, but he hit rock bottom when he locked himself in a room at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Beverly Hills during a weeklong bender.
“[I] was found in my room with these insane bruises all over my body. It looked as if somebody had beaten the s–t out of me. I couldn’t walk, so I was falling everywhere,” he recalled. “I almost ruptured my kidney, ended up in the hospital, ended up in 5150 psych hold. I was on such a destructive path that I could not function. I lost partial sight in my left eye for a while. I ended up having two seizures. I didn’t know any of this was happening until I was sober enough to remember it.”
The psychiatric hold ended up being a wake-up call for Haynes, who sought treatment soon after and “found this amazing amount of true love” for himself.
“I’m always going to be in recovery,” he told the publication. “There are so many people struggling out there, but not a lot of them talk about it. Life is much more beautiful than I could have imagined. It’s just a different life now. It’s the best gift I’ve ever been given.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
