Dolph Lundgren: Close to self-destruction before therapy | Forward Progress

Swedish actor, filmmaker and martial artist Dolph Lundgren recalls the impact of years of therapy sessions, which he started in 2012. Dolph looks inward as he shares how therapy taught him to be honest with himself and examine the darkest areas in his past. He continues by remembering the lowest point in his life - prior to therapy - when he was a drinking heavily, disappearing for days on drinking benders with random women and wrestling with suicidal ideation.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hey, it's Graham, it's Thursday and that means we're offering
you another positive piece of a past interview.
Each week our team digs through the archives to find our
strongest feel good stories to present to you in podcast form.
This week Dolph Lundgren there'sa seems to be very clear

(00:22):
alignment with when therapy started and when you started
becoming more open and media conversations.
Yeah, that's true. I started therapy in 20/20/12
and they really started working like 2014 in there somewhere.
And yeah. And they mean all these things I
wanted to do, for instance, professionally that I wanted to

(00:42):
do before, but it wouldn't work out started happening, you know,
better film roles and so forth. And also, you know, I was very
self-destructive when I was younger.
I. That means what?
Well, it's something called escape behavior.
Like for instance, if you're a young kid in Sweden and your dad
can come into your room and beatyou up anytime he wants to and

(01:05):
you can't do anything about it. You can't run away, you can't
fight back. And you're called freeze.
You freeze, your whole emotions get locked inside you and you
try to escape it by alcohol is agood way.
I mean organized violence is good too, like boxing, martial
arts. And that's why I became a
fighter and that's why I try to get it out through acting as

(01:26):
well and also drinking too much and kind of abusing my own body.
And a lot of that disappeared after I did therapy the.
Tools that therapy taught you would be what?
To be honest with yourself and to, not to be afraid of, of

(01:48):
examining, you know, the darks, the dark areas and, and the pain
inside, because there's a lot ofstrength in that.
Everybody has problems. Everybody has has a tough
childhood in their own way, you know, And I just think if you
don't, if you don't work on yourself, then it's going to the

(02:10):
older you get, the more it rulesyour life and the more you
become a slave to it. It takes over and you you end up
doing things you don't really want to do, but you have no
choice. What do you think's been your
single lowest point and how you got through it?
The single lowest point was probably when I was married.

(02:33):
I lived in Spain. My wife didn't want to move back
to LA. I'd retired 30 years too early.
I retired when I was like 35, moved to Spain and financially I
wasn't doing well. I wasn't getting the movies
anymore because I was too far away and I had to get divorced

(02:57):
and I didn't and, and I hadn't dealt with the PTSD, hadn't
dealt with my my trauma. And I was just basically, yeah,
I was kind of suicidal and self-destructive and drinking
and, and then, you know, having affairs and just being a really
bad husband and a really bad dad, you know, I mean, that was

(03:19):
a low point in my life. I I, I didn't have the tools to
deal with it. I was just almost hoping that I
wasn't going to wake up one day after one of these drinking
bouts where I would just disappear for a couple of days
from my home and my kids didn't know where I was and friends
were looking for me. And yeah.

(03:42):
Did did you ever try taking yourown life?
Not, not in the way, you know, like I'm going to do it because
I would have probably succeeded,but because I'm kind of a, you
know, result oriented guy, you know.
But no, I think I, I, I tried tosort of, I, I was very close, I

(04:03):
think by just, you know, drinking and not taking care of
myself. Sort of a just.
How bad did that get? We got bad.
We just end up with some woman who I never met or can't
remember anything about, you know, just just gone with her
for like maybe a day or two. Just drove my kids up to school.

(04:29):
And then just go on a bend her for a couple of days to a point
where some of my friends would find me finally and pull me out
of bed. And I would stay with their at
their house for until I was, youknow, sober and well enough to
go home to my kids. You know, after I did therapy, I
went back and I, I apologized tomy kids and my ex-wife, too.

(04:52):
What did you say? I just said I'm really sorry for
what I did and I, I hope you canforgive me, you know, And they
started crying immediately. Did they?
Yeah. So so I knew that it was it was
that it was good that I did it because they realized that their

(05:16):
their strong dad can also make mistakes.
But the main thing is that you have to you have to owe up to
it. My wife started crying before I
even they need not to say have the sentence.
How has it been ever since? Well, there's been my kids,

(05:38):
they're very good. They, they, they have been in
therapy on and off when they have a problem and they, they
think it's completely normal. And I think it's great, you
know, and I've been, I've had some issues with one, especially
with my own younger daughter. And we've been in therapy
together. I hear she's more like you.
Yeah, we've been in therapy together and it's Greta and it's

(06:00):
perfect and and I love that the fact that they think it's
perfectly OK, the trauma and allof those things that I've that
fuelled me, but I they were alsolike, it was like a devil inside
that I couldn't, I didn't know how to deal with it, you know,
and these things can end badly for a lot of people.

(06:20):
I mean, you know, people self destruct in this business and it
wouldn't, I wouldn't been the first one and I was very close.
That's it for now, but if you'rehungry for more in depth with
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(06:43):
years. Thanks again for listening.