By India McCarty
Drake Bell says Josh Peck, his former DRAKE & JOSH co-star, was a “big inspiration” when he decided to get sober.
“I think it was just, like, exhaustion and just being at nowhere else to turn, like, just feeling like a rat in a cage. Like, just feeling like I couldn’t do it anymore,” Bell told Peck during an appearance on Peck’s “Good Guys” podcast.
He added, “It got hard. I just got to a point where I was like, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do this. Like, this is just something I don’t know how to do. I know how to survive. I’ve been doing that my whole life. I feel like I’ve needed to just survive.”
Bell entered rehab in 2023 but admitted it was a “battle” where he was “kicking and screaming.” However, seeing Peck go through his own journey of sobriety was inspiring.
“Watching you throughout the years too has been a big inspiration. ‘Cause it’s like, you know, being in this industry and being around and also just being in that world of the 12 steps and all of that,” he told Peck. “Watching you has been inspiring because it’s like, you know, you really stick to [it].”
He added that his sobriety has been a struggle but is something he chooses every day.
“It’s a day-by-day thing, you know, you’re not gonna fall and you’re not gonna slide back, but it’s not…easy.”
Peck has also been open about his struggles with substance abuse and his decision to get sober at 21.
“At 17, I lost all this weight but I was like the same head but in a different body,” he explained during an episode of “Cancelled With Tana Mongeau,” saying that he felt like it was time to “catch up” on the partying he didn’t do while working on DRAKE & JOSH.
Related: Drake Bell Exposed Sexual Abuse on Set; Now His Life Is Changed for The Better
Peck continued, “I just spent four years being a total cliché…I can look back on that now and go, ‘Oof.’ That was the moment where I said, ‘Oh, this is who I am,’ and that sent me on a four-year vision quest that could have been really bad.”
“To be able to have gotten out of it at 21, I feel grateful. There were a lot of close calls,” he said. “I just felt like a cliché. And I was breaking my mom’s heart.”
Bell and Peck also discussed Bell’s accusations of child sexual abuse against Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck (no relation to Josh Peck), which were publicly revealed in the bombshell docuseries QUIET ON SET.
“Where I felt most comfortable, where I was the happiest, was when I was on set with you guys,” Bell told his former co-star. “And the worst part was, every day I got there, the monster was there.”
Peck shared his sympathy for Bell’s situation, saying, “In watching the documentary at 38, as a father, as a grown-up, so much was revealed to me of what you had to go through. I can’t even imagine that.”
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