Dave Coulier has faced tremendous loss with the death of three people very close to him.
During an appearance on “The Tamron Hall Show,” the 62-year-old actor revealed how his sobriety helped him navigate grief after the passing of his brother Dan, his “Full House” co-star Bob Saget, and his father.
“I definitely went through the sorrow hat trick, so to speak, my brother took his own life and he was actually the funniest person I’ve ever known. My brother, Dan,” Coulier began, “I was the one who found him at my dad’s house down in the basement. A part of me died that day, as well, because I really loved my brother.”
He continued, “I made jokes to my friends and family and the line was, ‘Boy, I sure picked the wrong time in my life to stop drinking.’ And people would laugh at that knowing I was sober. And then my father passed away a couple of months ago and I got to say all the of the things that a son could say to his father about how proud I was.”
The actor then detailed the last conversation he would ever have with Saget, “He was texting me and making me laugh and we were texting back and forth and making each other laugh very hard. The last thing I said to him was, ‘Have a great show tonight.’ That was my last real connection with Bob.”
Coulier also reflected on how his sobriety had been able to let him feel the pain of loss in order to properly process his emotions.
“I thought to myself after those three lives were gone, I would’ve never been able to feel all of that if I was drinking and it was really important to me to just feel that sorrow,” he remarked, back in March the actor revealed that he was two years sober on Instagram. “There was nothing masking that, there were no layers that were covering that up. I thought to myself, ‘This is what I should be doing. I should be feeling this pain. I should be feeling this incredible love for these people.'”
He concluded, “With alcohol, I was covering all that up. It was a real stark reminder to me that alcohol had been stealing all of those moments in my life for a long, long time.”
When Dave announced the milestone of his sobriety in March, he described how “no one loved having ‘beers with the boys’ after playing hockey or a round of golf more than me. I was always the ‘final final’ guy in the room.”
But there was a price to be paid for being the “life of the party,” as it were.
“The eight hours of drinking, laughter and funny stupidity was followed by two days of feeling like a bowl of dog mess,” Coulier said. “I loved booze, but it didn’t love me back.”
And so, he decided to make a decision for his health, his well-being, his family and “for those around me who I love so dearly.”
He admitted to struggles along the way, and that he needed the support of his wife, Melissa, and “friends who had already made the journey, but that it has been well worth it. Coulier said the transformation both physical and psychological has “been amazing.”
“The sky is more blue, my heart is no longer closed, and I enjoy making people laugh until they fall down more than ever before,” he wrote.
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