Actor and director Ben Affleck has opened up about his drinking demons.

The two-time Oscar-winner has made no secret of the fact that he has had problems with alcohol in the past, with him checking into rehab for alcoholism in 2018.

Now, in a new interview the Deep Water star, 49, has claimed that ‘part of the reason’ for his drinking was because he felt ‘trapped’ in his marriage to Jennifer Garner, also 49.

Speaking to Howard Stern during his US radio show on Tuesday, he said: “We had a marriage that didn’t work. This happens. It was somebody I love and respect but to whom I shouldn’t be married any longer.”

While they attempted to work things out for the sake of their children – daughters Violet, 16, Seraphina, 12, and nine-year-old son Samuel - it just wasn’t working.

“I was like, ‘I can’t leave because of my kids, but I’m not happy, what do I do?’ And what I did was [I] drank a bottle of scotch and fell asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution,” he said.

“But both of us felt like we don’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage,” he told Stern.

Despite previously calling his divorce his “biggest regret,” Affleck concluded that ending their marriage, was the right thing to do: “We’d probably be at each other’s throats.”

“I’d probably still be drinking. Part of why I started drinking alcohol was because I felt trapped.”

Affleck and Garner first confirmed their relationship in 2004 and got married the year after. The Hollywood A-listers got divorced in 2018.

He is currently in a relationship with singer Jennifer Lopez, 52, whom he previously dated in 2002.