Spencer Pratt slams Ben Affleck's resurfaced claim that 'the cure for addiction is suffering'

Reality television personality Spencer Pratt is publicly challenging actor Ben Affleck's recent assertion that suffering is the only cure for addiction, reigniting a debate over how Los Angeles should confront its ongoing drug and homelessness crises.

The feud stems from a resurfaced 2021 clip of Affleck's appearance on "The Howard Stern Show," in which the Oscar-winning actor, 53, reflected on his years-long battle with alcoholism. Affleck told Stern that the path to sobriety, in his experience, ran through personal pain.

"The cure for addiction is suffering," Affleck said. "You suffer enough that something inside you goes, 'I'm done.' And I'm lucky because I hit that point where I lost really the things that were the most important. It was not my career or money. It was my relationship with my kids."

He added, "I recognized it. It was the worst day of my life. I made amends. And for a while I thought, 'Maybe this is temporary, maybe this feeling is going to go away.' But since that day, I swear to Christ, I have not ever wanted to drink once."

Affleck also praised Alcoholics Anonymous while criticizing what he called "overpriced rehabs" and "fraudulent fixes." He has spoken publicly about seeking treatment in 2001 and again in 2017 and 2018, and has credited his three children with ex-wife Jennifer Garner for motivating his continued sobriety. In a 2020 interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer, Affleck said his father's struggles with alcohol shaped his own choices.

The clip began circulating again this week, and Pratt, 42, reposted it Monday alongside a pointed critique. The "Hills" alum, who mounted an unsuccessful campaign for mayor of Los Angeles earlier this year, has made addiction policy the central focus of his public advocacy since entering politics.

"I'd love for Ben to join me on Skid Row and explain his addiction theory to the methed out psychos skinning dogs alive and sleeping in their own feces," Pratt wrote. "Plenty of suffering out there, and yet…somehow the addiction persists. I wonder what the difference is…"

Pratt launched his mayoral bid in January 2025, on the one-year anniversary of the Palisades Fire, which destroyed his home. He had briefly considered a run for governor before settling on the Los Angeles race, framing the city's homelessness and addiction crises as inseparable. In a March interview, he summed up his view in a single sentence: "LA doesn't have a homeless problem. We have a drug problem."

Throughout the campaign, Pratt pushed for aggressive, and at times involuntary, intervention. He repeatedly called for broader use of California's expanded conservatorship law, known as SB 43, which allows certain individuals with severe substance use disorders to be placed into court-supervised care. In May, he unveiled a five-part plan that included building large-scale rehabilitation campuses on federal land, ending taxpayer-funded distribution of drug paraphernalia, enforcing existing narcotics laws, partnering with the Drug Enforcement Administration to target fentanyl traffickers, and cracking down on what he described as out-of-state busing of people with addictions into Los Angeles.

Pratt also highlighted reports of animal abuse on Skid Row as evidence, in his view, of the broader consequences of unchecked drug use, and he frequently sparred with sitting Mayor Karen Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman, both Democrats, accusing them of spending billions without addressing what he called the root cause.

He conceded the mayoral race in June but has continued posting on social media about Los Angeles politics, particularly addiction, homelessness and public safety.

Affleck's representatives and Pratt's representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Pratt's remarks.

The exchange has drawn renewed attention to a long-running argument in addiction medicine and policy circles: whether recovery most often comes from personal rock-bottom moments, as Affleck described, or whether structural intervention and treatment access are necessary to help people who, by definition, may be unable to seek help on their own. Pratt's critique implicitly sided with the latter view, pointing to the visible suffering on Skid Row as evidence that pain alone is not enough.