“I start drinking and I feel smaller than I am, and I get louder than I should. It’s just not for me, dude.”

It may seem like ages ago when Shia LaBeouf seemed to be on top of the world. In his twenties, he was already working with Steven Spielberg on the fourthIndiana Jones and was the face of the Transformersfilm franchise.

But that quickly devolved into a slew of arrests—including six months of court-ordered outpatient alcohol rehab—and LaBeouf became a media spectacle, another “troubled” actor making the front pages for his erratic behavior.

But now, he is reinventing himself yet again, this time on his own terms. In arecent interview, the 30-year-old actor told Variety about the circumstances that led to his downward spiral, and how he has been recovering from that time in his life.

LaBeouf, whose career began with the Disney Channel series Even Stevens, says he never felt at home with the Disney brand. He and his friends “were outsiders,” he said. “It felt distant.” LaBeouf talked about his humble beginnings in Echo Park, where he was raised by his mother. “We didn’t have nothing. So I would steal Pokemon video games and Tamagotchis,” he said. He was first arrested in grade school for stealing a pair of Nikes.

While filming Even Stevens, LaBeouf lived with his father in a hotel, and recalled that “there were drugs everywhere—marijuana, cocaine, heroin. [My dad] gave me my first joint when I was probably 11 or 12.” Read more “the fix”…