Josh Peck Opens Up About Drug and Alcohol Use

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In a recent appearance on the “Cancelled with Tana Mongeau” podcast last month, actor Josh Peck, most known for his role in Nickelodeon’s “Drake & Josh,” revealed he struggled with health problems while on the show. Peck discussed the pressure of being a “morbidly obese” teenager and how this Hollywood role spiraled him into a drug and alcohol addiction.

The 36-year-old actor assumed losing weight would fix all of his problems. To cope with the pressure of fame, family problems, and internal turmoil, he turned to drugs and alcohol; it helped his pain when food no longer could. “At 17 I lost all this weight…I thought, I’m at the finish line, I did it, now I don’t have to worry about anything,” Peck said on “Cancelled with Tana Mongeau.

“But I was just still plagued with the same thoughts and things that had always messed with me my whole life.” The former child star wanted to make up for his lost teenage years while working on Drake & Josh from 2004 to 2007. 

Peck’s Reflection 20 Years Later 

Nearly 20 years later, Peck reflects on his teenage years, he recognizes he traded one addiction (food) for another (drugs and alcohol). “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,” he explained. The Nickelodeon star got sober in 2008. He feels lucky to have gotten clean early in his life. “To be able to have gotten out of it at 21, I feel grateful. There were a lot of close calls. I just felt like a cliché. And I was breaking my mom’s heart,” he added of his motivation to seek treatment.

His Memoir

The former child star wrote about his experience in the industry as a young child and his struggles with addiction in his memoir released in May 2022, ‘Happy People Are Annoying.’ Despite the mistakes he made, Peck said that when he looks back at his teenage years, he sees only strength and resilience. “It took me a really long time to love the 15-year-old version of me,” he told PEOPLE. “But now I understand how strong he was. And I feel like everything in my life set me up to find this chapter of health, peace, and contentment.”

Where is He Today?

Today, Peck makes guest appearances on TV series most recently “Fuller House,” “How I Met Your Father,” and “iCarly.” He even helps others who struggle with alcoholism, “Full House” star John Stamos says Josh was an inspiration to him.

Stamos struggled with alcohol abuse and a few years ago was arrested for a DUI and entered rehab. “Josh Peck was a big inspiration in my recovery,” Stamos said. “Right around that time, I was going down the wrong path and I had to straighten out. And then, I’m on this show with this guy who was then in recovery for many, many years, playing my son. That part was meant to be. I wouldn’t be alive, if I hadn’t straightened up, and he was certainly part of it.”

Peck now has a family of his own. He married Paige O’Brien Peck in June 2017. They share two sons Max Milo, 4, and Shai Miller, 1.