Gavin and Stacey star Ruth Jones has opened up about her ‘unhappy’ experience filming the hit sitcom, which led her to make a significant health decision.
The actress revealed that she abstained from drinking for ‘pretty much the whole decade of my 40s’ after she stopped finding pleasure in it. Speaking on the Bee Sober podcast, Ruth shared: “I didn’t drink pretty much for that whole decade of my 40s.
“The thing that sort of stopped me, I had Christmas. We filmed Gavin and Stacey, and for various reasons – the whole thing was great filming it – but there were a couple of things that went on during it that made me really unhappy.
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“It was sort of party-ish, everyone was socialising. We got to Christmas and it was that inbetween time, the day after Boxing Day.
“You’re eating up leftovers, and you’re just slobbing around aren’t you. You’re eating loads of chocolate. It doesn’t matter if you start drinking at lunchtime.
“I just thought: ‘What am I doing.’ I’d have a few glasses of red wine and I thought: ‘I’m just not enjoying this at all. I don’t like the taste of it, it’s not even giving me a buzz.'”
Ruth concluded Gavin and Stacey alongside co-creator James Corden, with their characters Nessa and Smithy finally uniting in the Christmas Day special, watched by an impressive 12.5 million viewers. She also shared the moment that sparked her decision to quit drinking, while also addressing the stigma surrounding those who choose to abstain from alcohol.
The final episode of Gavin and Stacey drew in a huge audience on Christmas Day
(Image: Ian West/PA Wire)
She recalled: “It must have been the 29th of December and I said: ‘That’s it, I’m going to stop.’ Now you’ve got such a proliferation of podcasts and communities, books, counselling, coaching, so much.”
Ruth noted that people often react negatively to the decision to give up drinking, unlike other lifestyle choices. She added: “The stigma with alcohol is so great.
“If you said ‘I don’t eat sugar’ or ‘I don’t eat meat,’ people just accept it. People don’t react badly to it. People don’t go ‘why’.”
As a public figure, Jones acknowledged that discussing her decision to stop drinking can be challenging. “It’s still difficult to sometimes talk openly to decide to stop drinking alcohol. Especially being in the public eye.
“Someone could listen to this podcast and go: ‘Ruth Jones had a problem with alcohol.’ Probably no more of a problem than the population of Britain.”