Demi Moore and ex-husband Bruce Willis’ three beautiful daughters Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah Willis share their parents’ good looks, creative talent, and powerhouse energy. They also all happen to live fully sober lifestyles, as do parents Demi and Bruce. But eldest daughter Rumer would caution against confusing their sobriety for a uniform past of addiction, noting that she made the choice to get sober on her own in 2017. While Rumer has since reckoned with her own relationship to substances, her story remains starkly different from, say, mom Demi Moore’s, whose alcoholism and drug addiction are chronicled in detail in recent memoir Inside Out — and it’s evident that Rumer has learned at least as much about dealing with a loved one’s addiction as she has with her own. In a new interview, Rumer opens up about learning that you can’t save someone else from addiction. And from what she’s said of witnessing mom Demi’s alcoholism, it’s clear that Rumer really did try.
Rumer chatted about her own sobriety and the community she has in her family for a series with Monument, an online support community for people looking to change their relationship with alcohol. One of the viewers specifically wanted Rumer’s advice for dealing with a loved one who was struggling with addiction, and the actress’s reply was telling.
“The first thing I would suggest for anyone that’s dealing with someone in their life that is struggling with alcoholism is, take yourself to an Al-Anon meeting,” Rumer said. “I understand this from my own scenarios — you cannot save them. There is nothing that you can say, there is nothing that you can do, whether it’s enabling or pulling your love away, you cannot change another person or get them to stop drinking. They have to choose to do that on their own.”
In a November 2019 episode of Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk, Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah all gathered to talk about the experience of seeing their mom’s alcoholism and relapses while growing up. Rumer admitted then that it was hard not to feel betrayed by Demi’s relapses, or take it as a sign that they weren’t enough for her.
“I wanted her to show and prove to me that I’m important enough for you to get sober,” she said. “I want you to show me that being in my life is worth more than any drug, any man, anything.”
As Rumer explains now, she’s learned that it was never in her power to fix her mom. And she credits communities like Al-Anon, a recovery space for friends and family of alcoholics, with helping give her the support she needed to move on.
These days, Rumer and Demi (and Scout and Tallulah and Bruce) are all on the sober train and find great strength in each other. In fact, Rumer says it was mom Demi in part who inspired her to get sober herself: “I was the last one [in my family] to get sober,” she admits. “And so also at that point I was like, ‘man, I can’t be the only one left here. This sucks.'”
Three years sober and counting, Rumer is far from alone. And each time she shares her journey like this, she helps viewers everywhere feel less alone too.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, you can get help by calling the Drug Addiction Hotline at 1-877-813-5721.
Before you go, click here to see celebrities who have struggled with drug or alcohol addiction. 
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