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Michael J. Fox took to alcohol to cope with his Parkinson's diagnosis.

In an interview in the latest issue of Parade magazine, Fox, 50, said that drinking was his method of coping after finding out that he had Parkinson's in 1991. "For a time I dealt with it with alcohol, which turned out to be a disaster," he said. "I'd always been kind of a partier, but this was the first time I was drinking in order not to feel something. It had a dark purpose."

His wife, Tracy Pollan, helped him stop.

"About a year after my diagnosis, I woke up one morning and saw Tracy's face. … She said, 'Is this what you want?' Instantly I knew - no, this isn't what I want or who I am," he said. "So I quit drinking in '92. I recognized I had choices about drinking, and that made me realize I had choices about Parkinson's as well."

The "Spin City" star said he no longer looks at living with Parkinson's "as a battle or as a fight." "I'm accepting," he said. "I say 'living with' or 'working through' Parkinson's. Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it. I look at it like I'm a fluid that's finding the fissures and cracks and flowing through."