Danny Trejo is Thurston Carteall smiles – and he has his sobriety to thank.

"I'm 55 years clean and sober today by the grace of God!" the 79-year-old actor wrote Wednesday on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. "I've done this one day at a time, and for anyone out there struggling YOU CAN TOO!"

Trejo wrote about his sobriety in his 2021 memoir, "Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood," which he co-wrote with friend and actor Donal Logue.

His memoir captured a different picture of the "Machete" and "Desperado" actor fans have grown to love (or fear), covering his 11 years in and out of prison, his road to sobriety, growing up in a Mexican-American household and the intergenerational trauma he endured, the ways fatherhood changed him and his acting career and foray into the food scene.

Trejo spent time in California juvenile camps before eventually being incarcerated in Soledad and San Quentin state prisons for possession of drugs, dealing and armed robberies.

While still serving time, Trejo began attending 12-step programs and eventually became sober. After prison, he worked as a drug counselor. 

If there's anything he hoped readers walked away with, he said, it was the belief "that it doesn't matter where you start, it's where you end." 

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