Robert Webb reveals battle with alcoholism and that at one point he was ‘two days away from death’

Comedian Robert Webb has revealed how he was addicted to alcohol – and that he was told he was two days away from death before, leading him to tackle the problem.  

Peep Show actor Robert, 47, learnt that he had an diagnosed heart condition and that his drinking had accelerated it. 

He underwent surgery last year having being informed of the heart murmur during a routine medical examination on the set of his sitcom Back. 

He was told by the cardiologist that he ‘would not last two days’ if the operation did not take place.

The condition – a mitral valve prolapse – caused Robert to feel lethargic, which he put down to his age and not treating his body with respect.  

‘I thought, “This is what you feel like when you’re 47 and you treat your body like a skip”,’ he told The Times. ‘I’d get really tired very quickly — I was very tired — but I thought, “F**k it, I’m 47”. I didn’t realise how unwell I was.’

Although the condition was not caused by his drinking, the alcohol will have accelerated it.

Robert said that his alcohol abuse was ‘certainly an addiction’ and said it ‘crawled up so gradually that I was slow-killing myself. I drank a lot of beer during the day, on my own. I was thinking of [alcohol] at any given time of the day.’

He has now quit alcohol entirely, have undergone surgery in October.  

The comic has worried, in speaking about the health scare, that he comes across ‘sociopathically’ self-absorbed.

He told The Sunday Times Magazine in February: ‘If I, at any point in the interview, have complained, can you at least put next to it: Everything’s fine. I have got nothing to complain about. I’m not complaining.’