Jason Mewes opened up about his fight with addiction over the years, recounting a particularly emotional moment with his longtime friend and collaborator, Kevin Smith, that helped pave his road to recovery.
Mewes, who has been sober for 11 years now, spoke candidly about Smith’s support with fellow recovering addict Steve-O on the latest episode of his podcast, Steve-O’s Wild Ride! The actor recounted how Smith masterfully used collaborations as a crux to help embolden him to get sober, encouraging Mewes to get clean so he could continue to appear in his films.
Mewes is best known for his role as the Jay to Smith’s Silent Bob in the 1994 hit indie comedy Clerks and its sequels, as well as its spin-off films Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. He’s also starred in Smith’s Mallrats and Dogma, among others.
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Mewes shared the lengths that Smith went to in an attempt to keep him clean, including driving him to rehab, paying for treatment, and housing him in his guest home to keep an eye on him.
“In the past, he would always try to help me like, ‘Hey, if you don’t want to miss out on this opportunity then you need to either go into rehab or you’re going to come stay with me and you’re going to stick by my side,’ ” Mewes said. “Right before [Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back] I went and stayed with him in his guest house and I literally couldn’t leave his house or guest house unless I was with him.”
Mewes also remembered a particularly emotional Thanksgiving with Smith that led to one of his earlier stints in recovery, sharing, “I remember I went to his house, it was Thanksgiving and I always used to have Thanksgiving with him. I remember me and him sitting out in front of his house, and he’s crying, saying ‘I want to let you in, but the whole family is here.’ “
Amy Sussman/Getty Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes
He continued, “And I had a tank-top on, and I had track marks. And he’s like, ‘I can’t have you see them like that.’ And I’m like, ‘I can’t come in for a plate of Thanksgiving dinner?’ And he’s like, ‘You can’t. Here, I am going to bring you some food.’ That was the first time I got sober for a while.”
Mewes would relapse years later after receiving medication for his kidney stones before getting clean once more. Still, Smith’s continued support had a lasting impact on the actor, who said on the podcast: “All the trouble I had, I had Kevin’s support and I know that made a big difference in the outcome of everything.”
Watch Mewes’ interview above.
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