Michael J Fox let fans know that he is ‘still cool’ as he shared a post for his 62nd birthday. The picture, posted to Instagram, features the ‘Back to the Future’ heartthrob alongside ‘Happy Day’s superstar Henry Wrinkler.
A few days before his birthday, Fox was honored at the 2023 Spring Moving Image Awards in New York City where he received a lifetime achievement award. He was accompanied by his wife Tracey Pollan and their adult twin daughters. Pollan and Fax have been married since 1988.
Three years after they married Fox would be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He spoke with Good Housekeeping in 2009 about how his family adapted to the new health adjustment.
“If I’m reaching for something, they’ll just do it and carry on,” he said of his kids. “[They have learned] empathy, resilience, and also sorting out what’s important from what’s not — things like vanity.”
His new diagnosis also caused him to struggle with alcoholism.
“When battling alcoholism, there’s great treatment centers and 12-step programs, but ultimately it comes down to you and this part of your brain that wants to destroy you. You wake up every day and you go at it,” says Fox to USA Today. “I had to wake up every day and say my biggest issue is not that I had Parkinson’s but that I had a problem with alcohol.”
But Fox’s wife Pollan helped him get sober. According to a 2018 article from People, Fox’s battle came to an end after his wife found him passed out following a night out binge drinking. Fox said that the beer he drank that night would become the last he ever did as he began seeing a therapist who helped him accept his new diagnosis.
“Acceptance isn’t resignation,” he says, describing the change in his thinking. “Now I can move on. I can start the [Michael J. Fox Foundation]. I can work with other patients. I can be with my family and allow them to worry about me.”
https://people.com/tv/michael-j-fox-stopped-drinking/
