Dax Shepard Says He Was Hesitant to Talk About His Relapse Publicly: Here's What Changed His Mind

Dax Shepard went public with his relapse this past September following 16 years of sobriety. On Tuesday's The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the 46-year-old Top Gear star admits that the decision to talk about it was a difficult one for him. 

"I did not want to at all. I had all kinds of bizarre fears, like, I have sponsors on my show, is that something that could cost me money, financially?" he shares, referencing his popular Armchair Expert podcast. "But the number one thing I was afraid to lose was I get so much esteem out of being someone who's vocally sober and I have people who write me, 'I'm month one,' or 'I'm week two,' and I love that. That's my favorite thing about being in public, so I was just terrified I would lose that. I really cherish that." 

Things changed for Shepard when a friend put his situation in perspective. 

"And I have a good friend that said, 'You know if your real goal is to help people, it's not very helpful that you're 16 years sober and married to Kristen Bell. That doesn't help a ton of people. In fact, it probably makes their life worse. So the fact that you just fell, that's the actual value. That's the thing you can do that's helpful,'" Shepard says. "So when it was framed that way to me, it got a lot easier."

Shepard and Bell have both been candid about the highs and lows of their marriage, with the Frozen 2 actress recently revealing that they'd returned to therapy at the start of the pandemic for a "brush-up." 

"If we can end the quarantine alive and married, my hats off to everyone," Shepard jokes on Ellen. 

The couple share two daughters, Lincoln, 7, and Delta, 6, and Shepard opens up about getting to spend more time with them in quarantine. 

"I've got to see them so much, which I'm so grateful for. Which is not to say they're not terrible as well. They're ferrets," he jokes. "They steal everything I have and have been doing so for now seven and a half years."

As for Bell, Shepard also shares photos of the actress in compromising positions -- peeing into a cup inside of his new car. 

"She can pee in virtually anything. You got an old fashioned Mountain Dew bottle? She'll get it done," he says. "I have more pictures on my phone of her peeing in public than probably any other photo of her."

Shepard jokingly adds, "When we get divorced, I'm sitting on a gold mine." 

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