Kelsey Grammer Now Drinks 'Every Day' After Quitting AA

Despite a past marked with drunk driving charges and rehab, actor Kelsey Grammer no longer believes he’s an alcoholic. Grammer refers to himself as a "reformed drinker" since announcing publicly that he quit Alcoholics Anonymous. He happily admitted to The Times that he now drinks "every day."

The 61-year-old actor, whose more recent projects include the TV series Boss, has decided that he no longer needs to be a teetotaler. He has enthusiastically hopped off the proverbial wagon. “I’m a reformed drinker. I no longer go to AA and I still enjoy a drink," he told The Times. "People need to know how to move on, and put things in another place. Drinking is not a vice. I want my five minutes at 5pm every day when I have my cocktail, and I want no one to bother me during that time.”

As a result, if you happen to see Grammer having a cocktail late in the afternoon, it’s best not to lecture him on drinking. After all, the actor received quite a few lectures in the past after he was arrested for drunk driving in the late 1980s. This was just the first of several run-ins with the law through the mid-'90s.

Grammer’s substance abuse problems led to interventions during his time on both Cheers and the hit spin-off sitcom Frasier. On both shows, his fellow cast members staged interventions after they experienced firsthand Grammer's addictive behavior with both alcohol and cocaine. In 1996, Grammer voluntarily checked into the Betty Ford Center after a drunk driving crash.

Grammer revealed in a Vanity Fair interview in May 2015 that his abuse of cocaine and alcohol were at least partially due to his sister’s violent murder and his inability to forgive himself. In 1975, Grammer’s 18-year-old sister Karen was abducted, raped and murdered by serial killer Freddie Glenn. “That was the time when I could not forgive myself for my sister’s death," Grammer told the magazine. "It’s hard to explain. It’s not rational. But it happens anyway. I know a lot of people who’ve lost their siblings and blame themselves.”

Although Grammer now drinks on a daily basis, he says he's in a better place. “If you can find a place where you can forgive yourself, then you can enjoy life very well,” he told The Times. His 2011 marriage to fourth wife Kayte Walsh "lit up my world and changed my heart, which was a bit calloused and hardened against a lot of things," he told Vanity Fair.

Grammer claims not to go overboard, and there are certain places he will not go. Although he is willing to have a drink, Grammer swears, "That does not go for cocaine—you are dicing with death when you go down that road."