George Bush more open about his alcohol 'addiction'

Reported January 30, 2008

US President George W. Bush said religion helped him overcome alcoholism and that he hasn't had a drink since he quit more than 21 years ago.

President Bush is talking more openly lately about his old drinking habit and offered perhaps his most pointed assessment yet by saying plainly that the term "addiction" had applied to him.

"Addiction is hard to overcome. As you might remember, I drank too much at one time in my life," Bush said during a visit to the Jericho Program, a project of Episcopal Community Services of Maryland that helps former prisoners deal with problems such as drug addiction so they can find jobs and reintegrate productively into society.

"I understand addiction, and I understand how a changed heart can help you deal with addiction. There's some kind of commonality."

"First is to recognize that there is a higher power," Bush said. "It helped me in my life. It helped me quit drinking."

When the president spoke publicly, it was plain that it was a powerful subject for him personally. Bush grew unusually somber and fixed an unbroken gaze on the cameras as he related the similarities between himself and the men in this sketchy East Baltimore neighborhood who are struggling to put their lives back together.

The 61-year-old Bush decided to quit drinking the day after a particularly boozy 40th-birthday celebration: July 6, 1986. He has often credited both his Christian faith and vigorous exercise with giving him the discipline needed to carry out that decision.

But when he was first running for president in 2000 and during his earlier years in office, Bush stuck to almost quaint code words when on the topic. He has never said publicly whether he was an alcoholic.

His checkered relationship with alcohol comes up frequently in his conversations, often as a joke or an aside. Bush is known to have said that the subject is never too far from his mind.

Recently, his talk has grown more revealing. Whether it's because he has no more elections to worry about, or he has grown more convinced of the positive impact he could have, or some other reason, they are likely to be welcome words for those facing similar problems, coming from the most powerful man in the world.

Before the presidential election in 2000 it came out that he had been arrested in 1976 for drunk driving near his parents' home in Kennebunkport, Maine. He told ABC News in December that he had not been "a knee-walking drunk," but that he quit cold after a bout of heavy drinking on his 40th birthday.

"I had too much to drink one night, and the next day I didn't have any. I haven't had a drink since 1986. I doubt I'd be standing here if I hadn't quit drinking whiskey, and beer and wine and all that".