Jacob Young, known for his roles as Rick Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful, Lucky Spencer on General Hospital, and JR Chandler on All My Children, recently opened up about his struggle with opioid addiction after a difficult childhood in a recent podcast appearance.
Jacob Young talks years of struggle with opioid addiction
Speaking on the Imperfectly Perfect Podcast, Jacob Young explained that he came from a difficult place before he made it big in the soap opera world. “Mental health has been a priority in my life for a long, long time,” the actor said. “I grew up in a divorced family. I didn’t ever know my parents together, as a young lad.”
Young explained that he came from a “humble” background, in which it was common for his family to rely on government assistance like welfare and food stamps. His father remarried, and he formed a bond with his stepmother. But she died by suicide when he was 16. “It was a whole new understanding of who I was, why life exists, and how things can suddenly change in a second,” the actor explained.
“I started smoking weed when I was like 14 years old,” he revealed, “I wasn’t even interested in alcohol until I got into my mid-20s.” He found success in soap operas from a young age, and it started a cycle of dependency. “I was drinking a beer or two or three, four, just to kind of lower the anxiety or the feeling of what I needed to do and get in front of the cameras and be interviewed. So that started becoming a habit to help ease the anxiety.”
He continued to explain, “I got into my mid-20s, you know, then it was cocaine … and there was Molly. I was a single guy. I was making a ton of money in New York.” He added, “I was dealing with resentment, depression, old wounds that were still bleeding inside of me.”
And soon, the bigger problem came. “I started getting hooked on opioids, and I went through seven years of my life wasted on opioids,” the actor admitted. “Still trying to figure out what was wrong with me, but I didn’t know. It was just needing to numb [to] just feel normal.”
But he continued to work, and he said no one suspected anything for a while. “I always showed up, I always did my lines. I was living a lie.” He added, “I was living an absolute lie; there was no two ways about it. And I would show up, pretending that I’m completely normal.”
Ultimately, he decided to seek help from his wife. “Nobody knew. Even my wife didn’t know. I finally broke down. I told her the truth, and I was like, ‘Look, I am addicted. And I can’t get off of this because I don’t want to get sick, but I need help,” he admitted.
He soon went into counseling and slowly got his life back on track. Still recovering from his addiction, Young says he now focuses on helping others get out of the problems that he faced.
Originally reported by Sourav Chakraborty on ComingSoon.
