Danny Trejo Celebrates 55 Years of Being “Clean and Sober"

Danny Trejo Celebrates 55 Years of Being “Clean and Sober” With Inspiring Message

By Regina Sienra on August 30, 2023

Congratulations are in order for actor Danny Trejo. The Machete Kills star recently celebrated his 55th anniversary of being “clean and sober.” To mark the occasion, Trejo shared a smiling picture on Twitter and offered some words of encouragement for those trying to overcome addiction.

“I’m 55 years clean and sober today by the grace of God!,” Trejo wrote. “I’ve done this one day at a time, and for anyone out there struggling YOU CAN TOO!”

Trejo, now 79 years old, has openly discussed how his troubled home shaped his childhood. “The biggest problem that I had growing up was that in my family, all the men did some kind of construction work and they were always complaining about their work. And they were always angry,” Trejo said on an episode of PBS' Finding Your Roots. “My uncle Gilbert, who was, for lack of a better word a drug dealer—he never complained so I kind of gravitated toward that,” Trejo said.

This led to Trejo becoming a drug dealer at age seven, arrested for the first time at 10, and by age 12, he was using heroin and joined a gang. As a young adult, Trejo spent a decade in and out of jail. During his time at San Quentin, he met a former inmate who visited the prison to talk about sobriety. “That guy saved my life,” Trejo recalled. “He said, ‘Why don’t you join us? Before you do anything, just join us. Give it a try. What do you have to lose?' It was kind of like an awakening. So when I got out of the joint, I went back to meetings.”

The chance encounter not only helped Trejo overcome his addiction but accidentally put him on the path to stardom. Once out of jail, he became a drug counselor. In 1984, one of the actors that Trejo was working with told him he was worried about relapsing on the set of a Hollywood film, so Trejo paid him a visit. This got him seen by the movie's creative team, earning Trejo a role in Runaway Train (1985) and launching his acting career. Almost 40 years later, Trejo has about 400 on-screen credits to his name.

Having wondered at some point if he would spend the rest of his life in prison, Trejo is now an inspiring figure for people from all walks of life. After all, spreading goodness has only brought better things into his life. He said, “Everything good that has happened to me has happened as a direct result of helping someone else.”

Actor Danny Trejo recently celebrated his 55th anniversary of being “clean and sober.”

Photo: Jean_Nelson/Depositphotos

To mark the occasion, Trejo shared a smiling picture on Twitter and offered some words of encouragement for those trying to overcome addiction.

I’m 55 years clean and sober today by the grace of God! I’ve done this one day at a time, and for anyone out there struggling YOU CAN TOO! pic.twitter.com/iQvYKW2VkR

— Danny Trejo (@officialDannyT) August 23, 2023