Brad Pitt has spent over a year in an all-male Alcohol Anonymous group, and now the Hollywood superstar is opening up about what drove him to get sober.

In an interview with The New York Times, the actor said his decision to give up drinking came after his split from Angelina Jolie.

“I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privilege,” he said, adding of his AA group, “You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard. It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself.”

“It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself,” he continued. “There’s great value in that.”

Brad also opened up about his father, stating he now sees reflections of his dad in every role he plays.

“I grew up with that be-capable, be-strong, don’t-show-weakness thing,” he said of his dad, who owned a trucking company. “In some ways, I’m copying him. He had grown up in extreme hardship and poverty, always dead set on giving me a better life than he had — and he did it. But he came from that stoic ilk.”