Why Josh Brolin Pursues Sobriety After Trying Acid at 13 (Exclusive)

Josh Brolin has a bright future ahead of him after a rough past.

The actor, 56, gets candid in the upcoming memoir From under the truck about his experiences with drugs and violence and spoke to PEOPLE about his journey for a story in this week’s print issue.

In his book, which will be published on November 19, the No country for old men The star said he first used acid with his surf group Cito Rats and was stabbed on the street in Costa Rica in 2013 after being asked for a cigarette or money by a stranger.

Brolin wrote that he was “stabbed in the belly button,” which ultimately saved his life. “The umbilical cord is the densest ligament in the body and it slowed the blade enough to prevent it from hitting vital organs,” he wrote.

During the harrowing experience, the actor and his wife Kathryn waited outside their hotel for an ambulance. After she brought him his phone, he called his ex-wife Alice Adair – the mother of his two eldest children – to tell her what had happened. “I know what to do, but you’re going to be okay,” she told him.

“She will talk to the kids about what I loved most about them, what they meant to me, and how I know they will grow into a future they can be proud of, and not ashamed of ,” he wrote.

Now Brolin is living a sober life after a 2013 interaction with his 99-year-old grandmother.

While appearing on Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson’s podcast Where everyone knows your name in September, the actor reflected on his last night of drinking alcohol, after telling them he had hit rock bottom at age 15 and was “much worse than (that).”

As for his last drunken night, he recalled, “There was a collision at Del Taco,” where he “woke up on the sidewalk.”

“I didn’t know where my car was, and it wasn’t that rare,” Brolin said. “That was only, you know, the 400th time it happened.”

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That evening, however, the Marvel alum was scheduled to pick up his brother so they could visit his grandmother, who was “on her deathbed.” He continued, “Anyway, I woke up on the sidewalk and went inside. My brother called me. ‘Where are you?’ I picked him up and ended up walking into that hospital.”

When he walked into the hospital room, he said his grandmother “lifted her head, looked at me and smiled and that was it.”

It was that interaction that inspired him to change for the better. “I was done. I said, ‘If this woman could survive 99 years on life’s terms, how dare I?’ Brolin explained. “I was 45 years old and I had gotten away with a lot, been to prison nine times and done a little bit of whatever. So I thought, “I wonder if I could do half of my life like this and then do this half of this life, then I’m living two lives and not just one.”

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While speaking with PEOPLE in an exclusive interview for this week’s print edition, Brolin reflected on his current life and his long marriage to Kathryn, his wife of eight years.

“The only thing you can change is yourself,” he says of the lessons he’s learned about love. “And drinking probably won’t help the relationship if you react to alcohol like I do.”

Brolin, father of four children — Trevor Mansur, 36, and Eden, 29, whom he shares with Adair and daughters Westlyn Reign, 6, and Chapel Grace, 3, with Kathryn — says his current life is “rawer.” naked.”

“The fear is still there, but I don’t really care. That’s the beauty of age, man. I wouldn’t want to be in my 20s again,” he says. “I just have no interest in going backwards. No matter how crazy life makes me sometimes, and how frustrated I am with myself, I really think, ‘What a gift.’ ”

From under the truck ccomes out on November 19 and is available for pre-order now wherever books are sold.