Dick Van Dyke’s Surprising Secret to Longevity

Published: December 15, 2025

By India McCarty

MARY POPPINS star Dick Van Dyke thinks he might have the answer to his long life and continued health.

“I got rid of booze and cigarettes and all that stuff, which is probably why I’m still here,” he said during a Vandy High Tea event. “I think I was probably in my 50s before it dawned on me that I had an addictive personality. If I liked something, I was going to overdo it.”

Van Dyke took steps to get his drinking under control in 1972, when he entered a hospital for treatment. He spoke about the dangers of alcoholism during a 1974 appearance on THE DICK CAVETT SHOW, calling it a “physical disease.”

“It has nothing to do with the person not being mature enough not to drink too much,” Van Dyke explained. “It’s a true addiction, like a heroin addiction.”

In a more recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, the CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG actor shared what led to his excessive drinking.

“I was very shy — with strangers — I couldn’t talk to people,” he said. “And I found if I had a drink, it would loosen me up. The barriers went down, and I became very social. That’s what got me started. It took me a long time to get over it.”

While giving up drinking was difficult, the actor said quitting smoking was “twice as hard.”

“It was much worse than the alcohol,” he said during an appearance on the REAL NO REALLY podcast, adding that it took him “forever” to quit.

Giving up alcohol and cigarettes has given Van Dyke a long life; the actor is turning 100 this year.

“People say, ‘What did you do right?’ I don’t know. I’m rather lazy,” he joked to People, before saying. “I’ve always thought that anger is one thing that eats up a person’s insides — and hate. And I never really was able to work up a feeling of hate. I think that is one of the chief things that kept me going.”