Daniel Radcliffe says he used to ‘black out’ after drinking

London -  Daniel Radcliffe, who became teetotal in 2010, has revealed that he “blacked out” nearly every time he had alcohol.

The ‘Harry Potter’ star, admitted that his excessive drinking was “unhealthy” and “damaging”.

The 22 year-old actor conceded in an interview that he would have headed down a path of self destruction if he hadn’t curbed his drinking habits.

He was so concerned about his behaviour in public when he got drunk that he became “a recluse at 20”, leading to him drinking at home by himself.

His frank comments come a year after he disclosed how the pressures of fame made him dependent on alcohol.

“The drinking was unhealthy and damaging to my body and my social life. That’s beyond question,” the Telegraph quoted him as telling the free Shortlist Magazine.

“I was living in constant fear of who I’d meet, what I might have said to them, what I might have done with them, so I’d stay in my apartment for days and drink alone.

Radcliffe said at that time, his life went off the rails for a period when he turned 18 and was filming ‘Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince’.

“I was a recluse at 20. It was pathetic - it wasn’t me,” he said.

“I’m a fun, polite person and it turned me into a rude bore,” he added.

He developed a penchant for whisky and partying, and said he was fortunate that the paparazzi failed to capture his drink-fuelled excess.

“For a long time people were saying to me ‘we think you have a problem’ but in the end I had to come to the realisation myself,” he said.

Realising he had to change his ways, Radcliffe quit drinking and has not touched a drop of alcohol since August 2010.

When he was asked if he had a “couple of fun drunken nights out,” the actor laughed and said “Yeah, but I can’t remember them”.

“Seriously, in the last three years of drinking I blacked out nearly every time. Blacking out was my thing,” he said.

He said that he spoke to Gary Oldman, a ‘Potter’ co-star who himself battled alcoholism himself in the 1990s, as his problem worsened.

“I did talk to him about it once. I didn’t say I had a problem — because I didn’t think I did at that point — but I told him I shared that mentality he had for actively seeking out chaos,” he said.

“He just said ‘You can’t keep doing this. You’ve got too much to lose’.

“And that really went in. But not even he could have stopped me alone — I had to stop myself. And stopping has shown me a world of happiness that I didn’t think was possible,” he added.