Drew Barrymore and Jason Ritter shared their emotional experiences with alcoholism, which Ritter says made him feel like he wasn't the person wife Melanie Lynskey 'deserved'

• Jason Ritter shared how alcoholism made him feel like he wasn't the man wife Melanie Lysnkey "deserved."
• Ritter said his mindset shifted after a year of not drinking.

Jason Ritter said that his alcoholism made him feel like he wasn't the man that now-wife Melanie Lynskey "deserved," prompting host Drew Barrymore to empathize with the sentiment.

Ritter and Lynskey appeared together on the Wednesday episode of "The Drew Barrymore Show," speaking about how they met and fell in love. Ritter apparently kept forgetting that he had met Lynskey in the early 2010s, until they finally were cast in the 2013 film "The Big Ask" together.

Ritter told Barrymore that the beginning of their relationship was difficult for him.

"It's not as cute of a story as you would like to think," Ritter said. "It was messy and interesting and weird, but mixed in the mix was I was dealing with some alcoholism issues."

Ritter said, with his wife holding his hand next to him, that while he knew Lynskey was "amazing" and thought she "would be incredible for someone who deserved her," he didn't think that person was him. After a year of not drinking, however, his mindset began to shift.

"I started to go, 'Oh, maybe I can promise some things to someone else. Maybe I can be this person,'" Ritter said.

"He did so much work on himself, I'm so proud of him," Lynskey said.

The testimonial prompted Barrymore to share her own experiences with alcohol, saying that while she hadn't participated in a specific program, she hadn't had a drink in almost four years. Barrymore told People in December 2022 that she drank to "numb the pain" of her divorce from Will Kopelman in 2016, and told the Los Angeles Times that she stopped after making the pilot for "The Drew Barrymore Show" in 2019.

"The narrative that one creates is that, 'I can't be with someone,'" Barrymore said. "And I haven't been in a relationship since I stopped drinking, and I'm really looking forward to one day not having that bad girl narrative, the instability, the, 'I'm not someone who's right to be with anyone for their sake.'"