When it comes to life advice and pithy pointers on the state of modern youth’s psyche, we wouldn’t normally turn to Zac Efron, the twinkly-eyed actor who had ‘YOLO’ tattooed on his hand. But following his stint in rehab earlier this year, he’s said something pretty interesting and important about our attitudes toward drug-taking.
Speaking to Bear Grylls on his show, (yep, Bear Grylls now has an American reality show where he goes out into the wilderness with a celebrity for 48 hours and feeds them witchetty grubs and bonds with them, just like a Tinseltown gap yah), Zac spoke about how drugs were a ‘social lubricant’ for him.
Crouching with Bear in a cave in the Catskills (seriously), he explained the ‘challenges’ he went through while doing whatever it was that landed him in rehab (he still hasn’t said exactly what it was). ‘Everywhere you go, to a certain extent, there is press of some form. I mean, whether you’re going out to an event, where you’re supposed to be out with friends, there will be press there, if you are leaving your house to go to the grocery store, there will be press there.’
He continued, explaining that all the attention made him hide. ‘It can be everywhere, and it’s, you know, it can be confusing. You spend a lot of time in your house going crazy, you know pretty soon you need a social lubricant. Once I needed that, [see, he really doesn’t say what it was] it became to go anywhere,’ he said in the video, released by NBC to The Mirror. ‘It was getting to the point where, er, I was caring less about the work and waiting more for the weekend, you know what I mean? Where I couldn’t wait to go out. You know, and sort of let loose and have fun.’
We totally get that, and we’re not even famous, and having even our most intimate moments photographed by strangers. Whatever turns you introvert or insecure, it’s easy to see getting nailed as the route out of your sofa-and-duvet-shaped anti-social cocoon. Drugs and drink lower your inhibitions, plus, if everyone around you is doing them, they’re cast as these fantastic facilitators to a great social life.
But then again, anyone who’s had to endure a night sober while talking to mates who are either slurring everywhere because they’re drunk, gurning on about their strong moral fibre and ambition while high on coke, or clammy-pawing at others to tell them about their beautiful souls while mangled on MDMA, will know that drugs and drink don’t actually make people better human beings.
Zac recognised this on his comedowns. ‘But then when Monday and Tuesday were difficult to get through, then I was like, argh, this is bad. You know, I just really never again want to have to take anything from the outside into me, to make me feel good about my outside.’
If we’re going to follow Zac’s YOLO guide to life, we should probably give this motto a whirl, too. Plus, considering we’re not rich and famous, it could definitely save us a bit of money.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.