Rob Lowe Says Getting Sober 34 Years Ago Was an 'Incremental Decision' Culminating in His 'Final Wake-up Call' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Before entering rehab atSierra Tucsonin 1990, Lowe,60, recalls experiencing myriad nudges along the way.

Another meaningful moment came after the now-infamoussex tapeof him hooking up with two young women around the 1988Democratic Conventionwas leaked to the public. “[The fallout] definitely changed my life at the time, and, in hindsight, I realized it was another step that led me to recovery and reevaluating my life,” he says. “But the thing that really changed me was not being able to show up for my family and myself.”

Rob Lowe in ‘Bad Influence’ in 1990.Everett

Everett

That low point came in 1990 when his beloved grandfather had a heart attack, and Lowe ignored his mom’s desperate call.

“I remember like it was yesterday: My mom telling me [on the answering machine] to ‘pick up, pick up’ because my grandpa had had a heart attack. I couldn’t deal with it in the state I was in, and I needed to go to sleep to wake up so I could deal with it,” theUnstablestar recalls, noting he immediately turned to tequila.

Rob Lowe.Jenny Gage + Tom Betteron

Jenny Gage + Tom Betteron

By the time he got to rehab, he says he was “so ready” to move past his hard-partying days. “It was relieving, and it was scary, [but] I learned the tools to change your life if you have the self-honesty to do it,” he says. “I felt, ‘Oh, okay, I’m not alone. I’m not crazy’.”

Lowe never looked back.

“I didn’t have any doubts [and] I wasn’t like, well, maybe I’ll be sober for a little bit,” he says. Instead, he just knew he was done. “I always tell people: you can’t get sober… I don’t care if it’s fentanyl, booze, drugs, coke, pot, gambling, overeating, sex addiction, whatever, you cannot stop for your job, your wife, your family, your parole officer, because you screwed something up.”

At the end of the day, Lowe says, “You only are going to stop when you’re ready, period.”

For more from Rob Lowe’s exclusive PEOPLE cover interview, please pick up this week’s issue, on stands Friday.

source: people.com