Ben Affleck is coming out swinging in new comments about his former marriage to Jennifer Garner — and his words have definitely left our jaws on the floor.

The 49-year-old movie star spoke with Howard Stern on the iconic radio host’s eponymous SiriusXM talk show on Tuesday morning, opening up about his marriage to Garner, raising children with the 13 Going On 30 actress, and more

Related: Ben Affleck Opens Up About ‘Second Chances’ And Discuss Romance With Jennifer Lopez!

Most innerestingly — and shadiest — is the Last Duel star’s assertion to Stern that had he not gotten divorced from Garner, he doesn’t believe he would have ever gotten clean and sober! WHAT??

Affleck said:

“We probably would’ve ended up at each other’s throats. I probably still would’ve been drinking. Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped.”

Whoa!

Of course, Affleck, who was married to the 49-year-old Garner from 2005 to 2018, shares three children with the A-list actress: 16-year-old Violet, 12-year-old Seraphina, and 9-year-old Samuel.

The Argo director says he felt like he had to stay for the kids, to keep the family together — but his own happiness was a distant memory. And so he drank to numb the pain:

“I was like, ‘I can’t leave because of my kids, but I’m not happy, what do I do?’ And what I did was [I] drank a bottle of scotch and fell asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution.”

Yeah, no kidding! Thankfully, Affleck went to rehab for alcoholism in 2018 and has been in a much healthier place since. We just can’t believe he’s saying that wouldn’t have been possible if he’d had to stay married!

We guess he already had to face up to what was making him unhappy in private as he and his second Jen had to agree to divorce:

“Ultimately, we tried, we tried, we tried because we had kids, but both of us felt like we didn’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage.”

Talk about a difficult situation. And the media didn’t help — because, as he says, it wasn’t ever as bad as it seemed in headlines:

“Everything you read [about the divorce] was bulls**t. The truth was we took our time, we made our decision … We grew apart. We had a marriage that didn’t work. This happens. She’s somebody I love and respect, but to whom I shouldn’t be married any longer. We did it amicably. We did our best. Did we have moments of tension? Did we have disagreements over custody? Was stuff difficult for us? Did we get angry? Yes, but fundamentally it was always underpinned with a respect. I knew she was a good mom. I always hoped she knew I was a good dad. I knew I was.”

If his marriage was driving him to drink, it was his parenthood that saved him from it. Speaking about getting clean for good, he told Howard:

“The cure for addiction is suffering, you suffer enough, than something inside you goes, ‘I’m done.’ I’m lucky because I hit that point before I lost the things that were most important. Not my career or money — it was my relationship with my kids, and when I felt as if it impacted them, I recognized it. It was the worst day of my life. I made amends … But since that day, I swear to Christ, I have not ever wanted to drink once.”

Love it!

Thoughts, Perezcious readers??

Share ’em down in the comments (below)…

[Image via Adriana M. Barraza/MEGA/WENN]

The post THE SHADE! Ben Affleck Says He'd Still Be Drinking If He'd Stayed Married To Jennifer Garner! appeared first on Perez Hilton.