Most successful actors will describe their early, pre-success years as the darkest, most difficult years of their lives. But for Bradley Cooper, the dark, difficult period came a bit later, after he’d landed a major role on “Alias”; as Jennifer Garner’s roommate.

In the new issue of GQ, the “American Hustle”; star reveals that working on “Alias”; was pure misery, and that it almost killed his career. One reason for this was that his role kept getting smaller and smaller as the show continued. Another reason was alcohol and Vicodin.

“I would only work three days a week. And then for the second season, I got even more sidelined,”; Cooper recalls. “I was like, ‘Ugh.’ And then next thing you know, I was like, ‘I want to f***ing kill myself.'”; Eventually Cooper’s frustration reached the point where he, against the advice of everyone he knew, demanded that J.J. Abrams write him off the show. “J.J. was like, ‘Okay.’ He probably would’ve fired me, anyway.”

Shortly after that, Cooper tore his Achilles tendon during a basketball game, and spent the next year consuming Vicodin, watching the Tour de France, and flirting with the idea of finding a new career. “At some point, you have to come to terms with, The business just doesn’t want you, you know what I mean?” Cooper says.

Then in 2004, Cooper landed the part that would make him famous—Sack in Wedding Crashers. But his new found success did nothing to curb his addictions. “If I continued […] I was really going to sabotage my whole life,”; Cooper says of his post-Wedding Crashers drug consumption. “I think work was getting f***ed up.”

Sometime around 2008, Cooper became sober, and his career really began to take off. He landed a lead role in “The Hangover”;, which led to “Limitless”;, which led to “Silver Linings Playbook”;, which landed him an Oscar nomination.

Elsewhere in the GQ profile, Cooper also opens up about his surprisingly sophisticated taste in literature. “Milton, bro? Milton,”; Cooper says of the Paradise Lost poet. “F***in’—that was the end of it. Motherf***er’s 57 or whatever, blind, dictating it to his f***ing daughter-nurse—Paradise Lost? I mean, I just couldn’t… That poem f***ing killed me. Satan? That character was un-f***ing-believable. I could taste him in my mouth, dude, reading that. I really, really, for some reason, connected with that poem.”;

For more with Bradley Cooper in GQ, head over to their website or pick up the issue when it hits newsstands December 24.