Jane Lynch Opens Up About Her 2017 Relapse and How She Was Given 'One More Chance'

In an interview with "The Guardian", the 61-year-old "Glee" actress got candid about her battle with alcoholism and her 2017 relapse.

She told the publication, "I went back into denial, after all those years of sobriety and self-knowledge. I fooled myself -- I woke up one day and went: 'I'm back.'"

The actress shared that her drinking began when she was just a teenager and by her 30s she was a functioning alcoholic and would drink almost every single day.

"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 remembered. "And then maybe the next time you drink, you get it again."

Jane added, "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."

Her alcohol dependency started to grow as the years went on and Lynch shared that she would often find herself at a bar until 7 a.m. following a night out. The "40 Year Old Virgin" actress noted that she would also frequently find vomit in her bathroom with no recollection of how it got there.

"You end up chasing [that feeling]," she stated. "And then if you're not chasing that, what are you doing? Who are you? You have to really face this emptiness."

Lynch described experiencing a sudden "magical lifting of my compulsion to drink" one day and decided to get sober. She joined Alcoholics Anonymous and followed through with her intentions to quit.

"It was very much a gift; it was almost like I was struck sober," she said.

Despite her efforts to stay clean, when Lynch divorced from her first wife, Lara Embry, she decided to have a glass of wine with dinner which triggered a relapse in 2017.

"I became a connoisseur of wine in a way that only an alcoholic can... It took about three years," she explained. "I'm telling people I'm drinking one glass of wine a night, and I'm drinking five."

"I think [it was] boredom. I think I got to a point where nothing was doing it for me anymore," she explained how she tried to manage being a functioning alcoholic at the time by only letting herself drink after 5 p.m. "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 five o'clock."

By this time Jane’s career had been taking off with her roles in “Glee” and CBS’ “The Good Fight”. The success within her career triggered another awakening.

"[It was] like the sober fairy said, 'OK, I'm giving you one more chance.' And it was over," she explained. "Five o'clock would come and I didn't notice it."

Since then Jane has remained sober and has made the most of her second chance. She currently plays Sophie Lennon on "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." She is also the host of the NBC revival of "The Weakest Link", and voiced the character Ole Golley in Apple TV+'s animated series "Harriet the Spy."