Jane Lynch Shares Details About Her Alcoholism, Relapse

Jane Lynch is getting candid about her struggles with alcoholism and speaking openly about her lowest point and finding sobriety again after relapsing.

The "Glee" star shared her experience during an interview with The Guardian, explaining that she began drinking as a teenager and carried on the habit well into her 30s.

"The first time you [have a drink], it’s like, Ah, I found it. I feel happy in my body, this feeling of bliss. No one can say anything to me that would make me upset or feel badly about myself right now," she said.

"And then maybe the next time you drink, you get it again. Before you know it, it’s not doing it for you. So for the most part, when I was in the throes of addiction, it wasn’t working. You end up chasing [that feeling]. And then if you’re not chasing that, what are you doing? Who are you? You have to really face this emptiness."

Something had to give, and Lynch decided to change her life's direction by getting sober. She poured all her alcohol down the sink and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. For years she remained sober but the lines began to blur again when Lynch decided she was ready to enjoy a glass of wine on the odd occasion without attaching too much meaning to it. She was wrong.

"I became a connoisseur of wine in a way that only an alcoholic can. I went back into denial, after all those years of sobriety and self-knowledge," she said. "I fooled myself — I woke up one day and went: 'I’m back.' It took about three years. I’m telling people I’m drinking one glass of wine a night, and I’m drinking five."

Lynch refused to allow herself to drink before 5 p.m. in the day but doing so meant she became obsessed with the clock.

"I was tied to this thing again, to some hope of what it was going to do for me, and the rest of the day didn’t matter. The only part of the day that really mattered was 5 o’clock," she said, adding that she believed it was boredom that pushed her back into her old ways.

It reached the point where Lynch could not wait for filming for "The Good Fight" to come to an end so that she could have a drink. This was about five years ago and it took several months for her to get sober again. Lynch likened it to being struck sober, "like the sober fairy said: OK, I’m giving you one more chance. And it was over. Five o’clock would come, and I didn’t notice it."

Lynch can next be seen as comedian Sophie Lennon in season four of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," which begins on Amazon Prime Video on 18 Feb.