Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe: I'm a lot happier since I stopped drinking

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, who recently struggled with alcohol addiction, says he's "a lot happier" since he stopped drinking in August 2010.

"I stopped with the help of friends and family," Radcliffe said on the Today Show July 14, 2011. "The last year has been a lot more managable and a lot better. I've been a lot happier."

I Was Reliant On Booze to Be Happy

Daniel, 21, recently revealed he had struggled with alcohol addiction shortly after turning 18.

"I became so reliant on [alcohol] to enjoy stuff," Radcliffe recounts. "There were a few years there when I was just so enamoured with the idea of living some sort of famous person's lifestyle that really isn't suited to me."

While co-star Emma Watson says she never suspected Radcliffe had a drinking problem, Daniel says his increasingly self-destructive behaviors led him to stop.

"I stopped drinking in August last year, right after I turned 21," Daniel recounts. "I suppose it (alcohol) was something to make myself interesting and make myself enjoy my life, I did become very reliant on it.

"And I think there's a moment when you realize that something that's actually ultimately very destructive has crept into being a routine, so that was the moment I decided that the amount I was drinking had led me to become unhappy. So I stopped with the help of friends and family."

Peer Pressure Didn't Lead to Alcoholism

Radcliffe, who's promoting the final Harry Potter movie, insists peer pressure wasn't the catalyst for his alcohol dependence.

"I don't know that it's something that would have been affected by my life or it's something I would have stumbled upon anyway had I never been Harry Potter," says Daniel. "But I wouldn't put it down to peer pressure at all.

"If anything, the only pressure that was put on myself to drink and become good at it--which I never achieved, I was always very unsuccessful at it--was put on by myself."

Now sober and looking forward to life after Harry Potter, Radcliffe couldn't be prouder of the role that launched his career.

"I'm so proud of it, and I haven't been pleased with all the films," Daniel admits. "Particularly number six (Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince). I particularly hated my own performance in it.

"But this film is so far ahead of anything else we've done. It's a fantastic piece of filmmaking."

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is in theaters now.