“I think we trivialize alcoholism a little“. In the show “Clique” on June 3, 2024, Gad Elmaleh spoke about his relationship with alcohol. The comedian has been sober since August 21, 2021. Faced with Mouloud Achour, he explained that he had been “a wine lover“.”I still am, but it’s an olfactory relationship” he joked.
Gad Elmaleh returned to the moment when it clicked. “There was a sadness. I realized that when I started trying to have happy moments without the joy and that alcohol was going to do the job instead of the joy, I said to myself ‘you have a problem, it’s not possible’ . I looked sad, I felt sad and one day I said to myself ‘I have to stop this, it’s not me and it’s stopping me from being myself‘”.
“Alcohol could help me a little”
The one who described himself as “asymptomatic alcoholic” on stage also evoked people’s views on his relationship with drinking. “People like to say to you ‘but you didn’t drink much, did you?’. It’s to reassure themselves, it puts them face to face with their own alcoholism. We also trivialize alcoholism a little“, estimated Gad Elmaleh.
If he didn’t need the alcohol to “overcome one’s modesty“, however, it was more complicated with women.”I had a fairly introverted, shy relationship with women. To enter into a game of seduction, there must be a first contact and I didn’t know how to do it, so sometimes, alcohol could help me a little“, he confided. But what really pushed him to stop was “especially to pretend. I wasn’t me“, concludes the comedian. puremedias.com invites you to watch the sequence.
This is not the first time that Gad Elmaleh has evoked his demons with alcohol. In May 2022, he explained in the columns of the “Journal du Dimanche” that he “drunk on any occasion“.”I was happy, I was drinking; I was unhappy, I drank; I gave a good show, I drank; a bad show, I was drinking. It was too much…”.
