During the 1960s, Danny Trejo spent a lot of time behind bars, serving time in San Quentin State Prison for various armed robberies and drug offences.
However, the 75-year-old has gone on to feature in more than 300 films and TV shows, and he credits much of his change in fortunes to giving up drink and drugs 51 years ago.
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Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, he said he entered a 12-step programme after a 'serious incident' and hasn't looked back since.
He said: "My life is just so beautiful since I took alcohol and drugs out of it."
As well as making it in acting, Trejo is also growing an empire as an entrepreneur, selling his own doughnuts, tacos and beer as well as setting up his own record label. In order to inspire prisoners not to give up, Trejo visits inmates, listens to them and shares his story.
He said: "Prison is the most hopeless place in the world.
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"I met a guy named Johnny Harris in prison. He was a speaker and I [saw] him in four different penitentiaries, but I was always the inmate.
"He's been my sponsor since 1963. When I go back, I just show them hope. You can make it man, look at me."
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Trejo said he counts his age from the day he became sober, 'because that's when my life started', and speaking in 2011, he said the 12-step programme was to thank.
"I've found in the 42 years that I've been doing this thing that any programme that doesn't adhere to the close steps of recovery that come out of AA and NA seem to fail," he told Prison Legal News.
"And not so much because that's the only way but because what you're doing is giving up your ego and saying this is the way I'm staying clean, it's not my fortitude and it's not my machismo. This is the way."
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Celebrity, Alcohol, US Entertainment