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Craig Conover opened up like never before on this week’s episode of Southern Charm.
During a candid conversation with very close pal Austen Kroll, this cast member delved into Austen’s previous claims that Craig had cleaned up his act so much while dating then-girlfriend Paige DeSorbo… that it caused a rift in their quality time together.
“Austen, listen, you’re one of my best friends,” Conover explained.
“I was never trying to do stuff to better myself to get away from other people. I didn’t ever know that it would change the level of our friendship. I want to get back to a place of love.”
Kroll took it from there.
“If I’m being honest, I feel like where all the disconnect has come is you’ve created this wonderful image of yourself and you’re terrified of disappointing someone or something,” he told Conover.
“Now, in order to maintain this, you’re saying, ‘I need to sit at my house and not see me with a beer in my hand,’ or something.”
After Kroll told his friend to “loosen” up a bit, Craig at last told Kroll he’d quietly been struggling behind closed doors.
“I can’t because I don’t have any leash on myself,” Conover confessed. “That’s any addict. I was like, ‘F-ck, me trying not to be an alcoholic is now affecting my friendship with Austen.’ And that’s where I was coming from. Like, I have tears in my eyes because it’s real.
“I was in the trenches by myself trying to better my life and then you were like, ‘Oh, you’re never with me anymore.’
“I’m like, ‘Dude, I can’t. I gotta stay home on my couch, because if I leave my couch, I’m gonna drink a bottle of Jäger and do dumb sh-t.”
This conversation marked the first time Craig used the word “addict” with his friend.
“I’m really lucky, dude. I’m lucky I got out of it,” Conover said of his drinking and what could have transpired if he kept going down that dangerous path.
The honest exchange proved to be a breakthrough for the pair after their falling out… with Kroll saying he cautiously optimistic about the future of their relationship.
“Craig’s addiction doesn’t excuse him from being an a–hole, Craig’s addiction doesn’t excuse him from being an angry f–king person,” Austen said in a confessional.
“But it is the starting point and it definitely is not what I expected him to say. And I have to give him grace for being, finally, as open and vulnerable with me as he is right now.”
Conover echoed this sentiment.
“Man, is it freeing to just be transparent,” he said in his own confessional.
“If we would have just had this conversation sooner, it would have saved us a lot of heartache and grief and frustration.”
