This ‘80s Actor Says His Stepmother Stopped His Relapse With One Brutally Honest Question

Feb 04, 2026 by apost team

He does not soften the edges of his past in his memoir "From Under the Truck." Instead, he leans into the discomfort. The book is a deeply personal account of a childhood shaped by instability, danger, and unconventional parenting, long before fame entered the picture. Born in 1968, the actor writes with clarity about growing up poor and untethered, raised by his mother, Jane, a wildlife conservationist whose parenting often blurred the line between survival lessons and fear.

One of the most unsettling stories he shares involves a tactic his mother used when he and his brother Jess were young. Surrounded by wild animals such as cougars, coyotes, and bobcats, she would sometimes shout “Sic ’em,” prompting the animals to chase the boys. He writes, “You knew if you didn’t get on the other side of that shut door within a couple of seconds, you’d be cleaning up fresh bloody marks somewhere on your body for the rest of the day.”

Even now, he struggles to categorize those experiences as outright horrifying. He admits he is “loath to say” they were terrifying, explaining that while his mother was often hard to be around, she was also someone he always wanted close. That emotional contradiction runs through much of the memoir. Love and danger coexisted, and the absence of safety did not erase attachment.

His mother’s death would later loom large over his adult life. Jane died in a car accident in 1995 at the age of 55. During the peak of his addiction, he recalls thinking that 55 was “a decent age to die,” believing that meant someone had lived long enough. Now older than his mother ever was, he recognizes how deeply addiction distorted his sense of reality, mortality, and worth. These are all reflections shared by none other than Josh Brolin in his memoir.

Brolin wrote openly about how early substance use entered his life, sharing that he tried marijuana at just 9 years old and dropped acid when he was 13. Over time, casual use hardened into dependency. One moment stands out as the breaking point. Brolin recalls showing up to his grandmother’s deathbed smelling of alcohol. She was 99 years old, and the shame of that moment cut through everything else. He stated:

“I knew that was going to be the last time I drank.”

That realization came in 2013, and it marked the beginning of sobriety that has now lasted more than a decade. Looking back, Brolin is clear about what sobriety gave him. “I love being sober. I have more fun,” he told The Times, then added, “There’s nothing that I go through that I am absolutely certain wouldn’t be worse if I was drinking.” 

He also reflects on the tough love he received from his stepmother, Barbra Streisand, in an excerpt Brolin shared with The Wall Street Journal. He recalls walking into her house and saying, “I’ll have a glass of wine.” After repeating himself, she looked at him and said:

“Aren’t you an alcoholic?”

When he answered, “I’m an alcoholic, but I like red wine,” she replied:

“You shouldn’t drink.”

He described the moment as “a pretty ballsy thing to say,” adding that she “always had a way of washing her tongue with a bulls*** cleanser before she talked with me.” Those blunt moments, like the painful ones from his childhood, now sit inside a larger truth. Brolin survived and learned from them. Today, at 56, he is clear-eyed about where he’s been and grateful for where he stands. He shared: “I like getting older. It’s like a great excuse to finally go, ‘OK, just mellow out, you don’t need to constantly spin.'”

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