Jon Hamm has been going to therapy for more than 20 years. "I preach it from the mountaintops," he told Mr. Porter's Journal in a recent interview. Hamm started therapy when his father died, leaving him an orphan, and also leaving him with "this horrible paralyzing inertia." A family member got him through the therapist's door. "I know it's a luxury, and it's not something everyone can afford," Hamm continued. "But if you can, do it. It's like a mental gym."

Hamm, it seems, was not wary of asking for professional help a second time during another mentally—and physically—harmful period of his life.

In 2015, Hamm separated from his longtime partner, Jennifer Westfeldt, and checked himself into rehab for alcoholism. He is as big a proponent of rehab as therapy, despite the negative (and largely false) assumptions often made about those who seek outside help—weakness, neediness, etc. "It's just an extended period of talking about yourself," Hamm said. "There's something to be said for pulling yourself out of the grind for a period of time and concentrating on recalibrating the system. And it works."

The grind, for seven years, was the dark and brooding Mad Men. Now, after a relationship split and a stint of alcoholism, the grind is somewhat less grinding: Hamm's newest movie, Keeping Up With the Joneses, looks mildly humorous with barely a speck of darkness. In other words, harmless.

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From: Esquire US