Donald Trump Jr. Called This Vice a “Recipe for Disaster” Before He Gave Up On It

Donald Trump Jr. is famously known as former President Donald Trump’s son who, like his politically savvy father is also a budding political figure and businessman. Similarly, he’s been involved in legal affairs such as the Civil Fraud Case Trial which is ongoing in New York. However, apart from the recent legal strife, he has found himself in the crosshairs of the law since 2001 when he was reportedly arrested for public drunkenness. Trump Jr. has been quite vocal about his struggle with alcohol for quite some time and even talked about how he got out of it. 

According to a 2022 article by Insider, the young entrepreneur opened up about spending a total of 11 hours in an actual prison for the aforementioned crime at the time. He was reportedly working as a bartender for a whole year in Aspen, Colorado just after graduating in 2000. In his book, Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us, Trump Jr. got candid about his vice and how it progressed to become a "recipe for disaster".

“Once I got going, it wasn’t easy to stop me - which when you’re in college, isn’t a huge problem, as long as you’re getting your work done,” he wrote as he recalled his good old college days. Furthermore, he briefly highlights how his thought process had evolved after ‘career’ began to enter his narrative. “Once I started thinking about a career and a life beyond school, it was [a problem],” said Trump Jr. 

Being youthful may perhaps have its own set of perks, it is a beautiful age where one begins the genesis of identity and passions; career being possibly the most emphasized and perhaps important factor to think about. For someone such as Trump Jr., getting into a career while being addicted to alcohol was a situation he didn’t seem to be prepared for. He bluntly confessed in the book, “To be honest, I don’t know how to drink in moderation.” 

However, after a tumultuous battle with the vice, he proudly highlights overcoming his addiction with a little support, and some of that ‘Trump Willpower’. Trump Jr. may have perceived his arrest as a ‘potential’ threat to his career given the big wake-up call he had with those hours in a prison cell. He briefly spoke about his personality which ultimately led him to give up the vice. “I have an all-or-nothing personality; just ask anyone who knows me.”

His next lines were a careful emphasis on the aftermath of his vice. “Being compulsive works for some things - give me a job to do, and I’m going to get it done - but it’s not good for vices.” In the book, Trump Jr. shares his final thoughts on the matter by stating, “I would come to find that it was easier for me to ignore alcohol than it was to try to control it.”