John Stamos is opening up about his struggles with alcohol in his new book If You Would Have Told Me. While appearing on this morning’s episode of The View, the Full House actor revealed he “could’ve killed somebody” when he got busted for a DUI.
The shocking moment came as Stamos explained to Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Sunny Hostin why he decided to pen a memoir. According to Stamos, he “never thought about writing a book” until he became a father in his 50s and lost his close friend and Full House co-star, Bob Saget.
“They came to me and I said, ‘I don’t know,'” he recalled. “I wrote an obituary in the LA Times about [Saget] and they said, ‘You’re a really good writer.’ And I said, ‘I don’t even remember writing that.'”
When it came time to sit down and write the book, Stamos said he got the “hardest” parts out of the way first.
“I wrote the first chapter — the lowest I’ve ever been in my life,” he said. “I was struggling with alcohol and abuse. I got a DUI. I was driving like an idiot. I could’ve killed somebody. Went to rehab. That was the first one I wrote. My five stages of grief there were sex, drugs, it was terrible.”
Stamos was arrested for a DUI in 2015 and pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charge, per NBC News. He was later sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to undergo a three-month alcohol abuse program. Stamos was also instructed to attend 52 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and partake in two hours of addiction counseling.
After writing about the difficult experience, Stamos said he had to move onto another challenging topic: the death of Saget.
“I thought the next hardest would be about when Bob died. So I wrote about that,” he told The View. “My five stages of grief there were therapy, family, health, then I sort of had to tie it all together.”
While the book started as a “hero story,” it quickly became a “human story” because Stamos “realized anything less than truth is paralysis.” He added that “it felt so good” to get everything out in the memoir.
Saget, who died in 2022, was also a frequent topic during Stamos’ visit to the Hot Topics table. The General Hospital actor explained to the ladies how his 5-year-old son got Saget’s “sense of humor,” and dished on why it was “important” to include his friend in the book.
“His wife called me the other day, crying. She said, ‘If nobody knows Bob, read this book because that’s a true representation of him,'” he said. “What he did was, he never left anything on the table. He always said, ‘I love you, I care about you, I’m proud of you.’ Tomorrow’s never promised so remember that.”
The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357.