Imperfectly Perfect<\/a> podcast, Young opened up about his difficult childhood and substance abuse problems that ultimately led to a seven-year battle with opioid addiction.<\/p>\n\u201cMental health has been a priority in my life for a long, long time,\u201d \u00a0Young told host Glenn Marsden before he spoke candidly about his past.<\/p>\n
Before he burst into the soap scene, Young had a fractured family life. \u201cI grew up in a divorced family. I didn\u2019t ever know my parents together, as a young lad,\u201d said Young. He had a \u201chumble upbringing,\u201d which included government assistance, welfare, and food stamps when needed, which also sometimes resulted in him not knowing where his next meal might come from.<\/p>\n
After his father remarried, Young bonded with his stepmother, which led him to live with his father as a teen. However, when he was 16, his stepmother took her own life. \u201cIt was a whole new understanding of who I was, why life exists, and how things can suddenly change in a second.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was after he found soap opera success that Young\u2019s dependency on substances began in earnest, and he started to spiral. \u201cI started smoking weed when I was like 14 years old,\u201d the actor explained. \u201cI wasn\u2019t even interested in alcohol until I got into my mid-20s.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was drinking a beer or two or three, four, just to kind of lower the anxiety or the feeling of what I needed to do and get in front of the cameras and be interviewed. So that started becoming a habit to help ease the anxiety,\u201d explained the actor.<\/p>\n