IN HIS OWN VOICE –
April 25, 2025 – For this year’s luncheon, Hank Azaria, a multi-award-winning actor who’s most notable work includes voicing various, albeit iconic, characters on The Simpsons and movies like Along Came Polly, Heat, and Night at the Museum. He has also been outspoken about his journey overcoming substance and celebrates 18 years in recovery.
Before taking that first step toward actively seeking change, Azaria tells me he had to trust the little voice telling him he needed to do so. Having previously been a part of the Al-Anon Program, for friends and family members of alcoholics, it seemed easy to self-diagnose and keep that nagging voice at bay, until he couldn’t.
“I trusted that voice enough to pull myself out before I really made a mess of my life, but I had no doubt that if I kept on going for that another year, I would have, and sure enough, that first year was very hard not to drink,” he admitted. “It was one day at a time. It was pretty much a meeting every day. And I got very, very, as we say, one of the first things I heard in recovery, in alcohol recovery, is ‘If you want to find out why you drank, stop drinking,’ and I got very restless, irritable, and discontent, as they call it in the literature — I had no idea I was that angry and upset [without alcohol].”
