Tom Holland opens up about the moment he knew he had alcohol problem

Tom Holland opened up about his sobriety journey, and explained what caused him to stop drinking alcohol.

Holland, who said he has been sober for about a year and a half, said on the July 10 episode of "On Purpose with Jay Shetty" podcast he didn't initially plan to quit drinking completely.

"I didn't one day wake up and say, 'I'm giving up drinking,'" Holland said. "I just, like many Brits, had had a very, very boozy December — Christmas time, I was on vacation. I was drinking a lot. And I've always been able to drink a lot. I think I get my genes from my mom's side in that I can drink. And I decided to just give up for January."

He explained he wanted to do Dry January, a challenge where people don't drink for the first month of the year, but his reaction to stopping drinking scared him.

"All I could think about was having a drink," he said. "I was waking up thinking about it. I was checking the clock, 'When's it 12?' And it just really scared me. I just thought, well, maybe I have a little bit of an alcohol thing."

The "Spider-Man" actor said he then decided to "punish" himself and extend the challenge through February.

"If I can do two months off, then I can prove to myself that I don't have a problem," he recalled telling himself. "Two months go by, and I was still really struggling. I felt like I couldn't be social. I felt like I couldn't go to the pub and have a lime soda. I couldn't go out for dinner. I was really, really struggling. And I started to really worry that maybe I had an alcohol problem."

After February, Holland said he decided to wait to drink again until his birthday, June 1.

"I said to myself, if I can do six months without alcohol, then I can prove to myself that I don't have a problem," he said. "And by the time I had got to June 1, I was the happiest I've ever been in my life."

He explained the physical and mental health benefits he felt after six months of no drinking.

"I could sleep better, I could handle problems better. Things that would go wrong on set that would normally set me off, I could take in my stride. I had so much such better mental clarity. I felt healthier, I felt fitter," Holland said.

Holland previously said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly he was sober, but didn't specify why he had stopped.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com