Actor Alexander Scheer has publicly disclosed details about a medical diagnosis and his former drug use.
“I have high‑grade ADHD” Scheer told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. The diagnosis was prompted by his girlfriend after she recognized his symptoms in a medical TV series. “She sent me to a doctor who concluded: I have high‑grade ADHD. I don’t see it as a big problem. My only issue is that in interviews I tend to build compound sentences as if there is no morning” the 49‑year‑old explained.
Scheer said he uses the condition productively. “I manage well with hyperfocus, and I can handle multiple events in my mind simultaneously. I can engage with six things at once” he said. Nevertheless, for the prep reading ahead of his current David Bowie night, he resorted to medication. “You can prescribe something for that. I only do it rarely, when I really need to concentrate – for instance when I wanted to read a dozen books”. He added that the effect was enormous. “Reading is naturally difficult for me. But with such a pill I can read at least one book a day”.
He spoke openly about experiences with other substances. When asked which drugs David Bowie’s friends used that Scheer had tried himself, he replied, “Everything”. He placed this in a biographical context: “I’m a child of the nineties from East Berlin. We had a lot to catch up on. Berlin was then the freest place in the universe. Naturally, it was celebrated”.
In his present professional life, he rejects drugs outright: “At some point I realized that you can’t both party and study-both don’t work. Acting is a team sport. Drugs are doping, and that goes against the Olympic idea – the performance comes from you!” he said.
In the music scene, however, he takes a different stance: “In music I can tolerate drugs, by the way. Music involves fire at night. It comes from shamanism and ecstasy. Drugs do not get in the way. Put a Rolling Stones record on. You hear every gram”.
As an example of a personal drug experience, Scheer recounted a scene from his youth: “I once saw a ‘Tagpfauenauge’ on a house wall from 100 meters away, with almost microscopic clarity. When I arrived, it was really there” he said. “I think I was on psycho‑hallucinogenic mushrooms, or on micro‑chemicals, the chemical variant of it”.
