Paula Patton on Why She Stopped Drinking: ‘Something Came Over Me'

Paula Patton defeated alcoholism to get past "chaos" in her life.

The actress stopped by Atlanta radio show Big Tigger Morning Show w/ Jazzy Mcbee on Monday (June 16) and around the three-minute mark of the video below, spoke about what led her to sobriety. Patton has been sober for seven years, which began a few years after her divorce from Robin Thicke in 2015.

"When you get sober–It's so funny, I just had this epiphany that I had made a
choice. Like, it was family, it was my life or chaos, to be honest with you," Patton said. The Finding Faith star and Thicke share a 14-year-old son, Julian Fuego.

"I was about to go do a movie in London, and I was like, I can't do this anymore," Patton continued. "I'm like, I want to be here to pack my son's lunch and go on field trips."

Patton refused to film the movie just two days before the trip, admitting that she "burned bridges" from the experience. "I said, 'If I do
this I'm going to stop drinking,'" she continued. "And so once that happened
you go down a path, and all of the masks that you wear, like all the things that fill your ego, they drop away."

The actress said that she lost "friends" in the process and that she spent "a lot of time alone."

"But then on the other side was this joy for being a mother. ... I just had this childlike experience where I started to see everything through my kid's eye," Patton said.

Thicke married his longtime partner, April Love Geary, last month, and in a recent interview on radio show The Morning Hustle, Patton said that her "love" for the musician "never dies." The ex spouses were married from 2005 to 2015.

"Sometimes you just get to a place where you just not supposed to be together anymore, but we had a lot of great times together," Patton said around the 10-minute mark below. "I met that man when I was 15 years old and we had a great love affair and we have an incredible son."

She added, "In my healing, you have to get to the place where you can forgive and also forgive yourself and then also only look for the love."