Jason Ritter has revealed his battle with addiction made him feel unworthy in the early days of dating his now wife Melanie Lynskey.
During an appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” the 43-year-old “Raising Dion” star revealed he didn’t believe he “deserved” Lynskey as he was battling alcoholism when they first met.
“I knew how incredible Melanie was early on,” he explained. “It’s not as cute of a story as you would like to think. It was messy and interesting and weird, but mixed in the mix — I was dealing with some alcoholism issues.”
Knowing how “amazing she was,” Ritter said, “I thought she would be incredible for someone who deserved her basically and I didn’t feel like I was that person. I felt a little bit too crazy.”
It wasn’t until a year into his sobriety, that the “Gravity Falls” actor realized he thought he could be worthy of their relationship.
“It was only after maybe a year into not drinking where I started to go, ‘oh, maybe I can promise some things to someone else,'” he recalled. “It’s been like a slow burn, so I knew that she was incredible, it was working on myself enough to feel like maybe I could be the one for her too.”
Lynskey gushed, “He worked so hard. He did so much work on himself, I’m so proud of him.”
Almost 10 years sober, Ritter celebrates every passing year by updating a Twitter thread he created back in 2018.
“Five years ago today I stopped drinking alcohol,” he wrote at the time. “I am so grateful to the beautiful community of people who helped me learn about myself and courageously shared their experiences with strangers like me, I was quiet but I was listening.”
Inspired by Ritter’s sentiments, host Drew Barrymore revealed she hasn’t had a drink in almost four years.
‘”I haven’t had a drink — and I’m not sober, I don’t work a program — but alcohol was my poison and I haven’t had a drink in almost four years,” she explained.
“The narrative one creates is that, ‘I can’t be with someone’ and I haven’t been in a relationship since I stopped drinking,” Barrymore continued. “I’m really looking forward to one day not having that ‘bad girl’ narrative, the instability, the ‘I’m not someone who’s right to be with anyone for their sake.”
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