has a lot of reasons why he prefers not to drink too much — and one of them involves benefits to his marriage.
“Our relationship when there’s no alcohol involved is considerably better,” the actor, 43, said about his marriage to wife on the Tuesday, September 17, episode of the “Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum” podcast. “We have more fun together.”
Stephen, who shares two kids with Cassandra, 38, has enjoyed how his life changed since he cut back on alcohol, adding, “I love nothing more right now than getting a good night’s sleep and waking up at 6 a.m. for an hour by myself before I make my kids’ breakfast and take my daughter to school.”
Despite drinking less now, Stephen doesn’t want to suggest that he “had a crippling problem” in the past.
“I think that it definitely could have [gone] in that direction if I didn’t sort myself out. But you lose the ability — if you are constantly dealing with a hangover — to feel genuine happiness,” he explained. “You miss it emotionally, you’re not present and you’re not available in the way that you should be as a partner, as a friend or as a father. It’s just dulling you.”
Stephen didn’t “quit drinking entirely” but said he goes “long stretches” without drinking.
“I would go through these periods where I think that [my] anxiety would be almost entirely connected to a withdrawal from alcohol,” he recalled. “I do my best to never touch any hard liquor anymore. But beers, ciders, wine [I still drink]. I make an effort never to really drink around my kids.”
The change also came as a result of Stephen feeling that he has “an addictive personality,” saying, “I have a history of alcoholism in my family so it’s a slippery slope. I’d rather just not get on the slope.”
Stephen made headlines in June 2022 when he was escorted off a plane from Austin to Los Angeles following a disagreement with his wife.
“My wife and I got into an argument Monday afternoon on a Delta flight from Austin to LA. I was asked to lower my voice and I did. Approximately 10 minutes later I was asked to leave the flight,” he wrote via X at the time. “And I did so immediately. I was not forcibly removed.”
Stephen clarified two months later that alcohol was involved in the incident.
“I had too many drinks in a public place, and I got on a plane,” he explained on the “Inside of You” podcast in August 2022. “I was pissed off about something else that had nothing to do with Cass, my wife, and I picked a fight. Just I picked a fight because I wanted to be loud and upset.”
Stephen added: “My wife said one thing the entire time. ‘If you don’t lower your voice, they’re going to ask you to get off the plane.’ I referred to it as an argument between my wife and I. It was not an argument. This is 100 percent my fault. I feel like I went the better part of 10 years without being an a—— in public. I was an a—— in public. [Cassandra] was frankly even more pissed when I said ‘argument’ as opposed to ‘pick a fight.'”
