Jack Black Opens Up About Secret Substance Abuse Struggles in His Early Years Related to This Specific Drug

Jack Black opened up about some of the hardest moments in his life while talking to Parade Magazine around the release of Goosebumps in 2015. He said the movie felt personal because he could relate to the struggles of his character.

“Goosebumps was a great adventure and a really fun role,” Black said. “It’s about forgiveness and not letting your rage and thirst for revenge control you, but it’s also about how some of those darker emotions can be used to create great masterworks. I play a guy with a dark past and a brilliant mind, wrestling with his own demons, literally.“

He admitted that his own past had been chaotic. “I remember just lots of turmoil from that time period,” he recalled. “I was having a lot of troubles with coc*****… I was hanging out with some pretty rough characters.” Things got so serious that he was afraid to go to school. “I was scared to go to school [because] one of them wanted to kill me,” he said.

A turning point came when he opened up to a guidance counselor. “I spilled my guts, telling him I felt guilty about stealing from my mom to get money for c*****,” Black remembered. “I cried like a baby. It was a huge release and a huge relief. I left feeling euphoric, like an enormous weight had been lifted from me. It changed me.“

Black said these early struggles, along with other personal tragedies, influenced the way he raises his children. “Sometimes I think maybe I’m a little bit of a helicopter dad hovering above my kids and making sure that they never are in harm’s way,” he explained. “Losing a family member is the worst thing I could imagine,” he added.

One of the hardest losses he experienced was the death of his older brother Howard in 1989, when Black was just 20 years old. “I have two gay siblings: my big sister, Rachel, and my big brother, Howard,“ he said. “He was a big influence on me. He took me to my first rock concert. I was 11; he was 23. He was so vibrant, creative, amazing. He shaped my taste in music.“

He described how painful Howard’s death was for the family. “[Death] didn’t happen quickly. We all saw the deterioration. He was only 31. So very young,” Black recalled. “We were robbed of something precious. It was devastating. It was hard for all of us, but it was hardest for my mom when we lost Howard. She’s never really recovered.“

Looking back, Black’s reflections show how much his early struggles and personal losses shaped him. They influenced both his work and his approach to life and family.

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