Michael J. Fox used alcohol to hide from Parkinson's

Michael J. Fox, who has spoken in the past of using alcohol to help deaden the reality of his Parkinson's disease, details in a new documentary his descent into substance abuse and his eventual sobriety.

Following his 1991 diagnosis with the degenerative and incurable nervous-system disorder, "I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know what was coming,” says the beloved star of "Family Ties" and the "Back to the Future" film trilogy in "Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,”  which premiered Friday at the annual Sundance Film Festival. "So what if I could just have four glasses of wine and maybe a shot?” Fox, 61, went on, as quoted Sunday in USA Today.

Adding, "I was definitely an alcoholic,” Fox — a part-time Quogue resident from 2007 until selling his home there in 2021 — goes on to note, "I've gone 30 years without having a drink."

Those first few years were highly difficult,  the five-time Emmy Award winner says: "As low as alcohol had brought me, abstinence would bring me lower. I could no longer escape myself."

During his early stages of Parkinson's, which he kept a secret from his co-workers and the public until November 1998, Fox had tried to stay as busy as possible with work and travel so as not to ruminate into despair. "You can't pretend at home that you don't have Parkinson's because you're just there with it," he says. "If I'm out in the world, I'm dealing with other people and they don't know I have it."

While the causes of Parkinson's are unknown, many of its symptoms, such as tremors, slurred speech and impaired movement and balance, are due to a loss of brain neurons that produce the chemical dopamine. Fox reveals in the documentary that he was taking prescribed dopamine pills “like Halloween Smarties,” referring to the brand of candy.

"Therapeutic value, comfort — none of these were the reason I took these pills. There was only one reason: to hide," Fox says. "I became a virtuoso of manipulating drug intake so that I'd peak at exactly the right time and place."

Fox, who retired from acting in 2020, credits his Woodbury-raised actor wife of 34 years, Tracy Pollan, and their children — son Sam, 33, twin daughters Aquinnah and Schuyler, 27, and daughter Esmé, 21 — with the inspiration to seek sobriety. He had told People magazine in 2018 that a year after his diagnosis, he had come home drunk and fallen asleep on a couch, spilling beer on a carpet, and awoke the next morning after his wife and then 3-year-old Sam had found him in that state. It would be his last drink, he said.

"Still" will stream on AppleTV+ at a date not yet announced. After it received a standing ovation at the festival, Fox wrote on Instagram the next day, "Beyond humbled and grateful for the incredible support we received at @sundanceorg last night. I can’t wait for you all to see my story."