The actor David Morrissey has spoken of how “terrible” social anxiety contributed to him becoming an alcoholic.

“I am a recovering alcoholic,” Morrissey, who has been sober for 21 years, told Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. “Drinking first was about anxiety. I’ve had this terrible social anxiety and that helped me get through it.”

He said he started drinking in his teenage years after the death of his father and then “in my adult life, I couldn’t stop. I wasn’t drinking to be convivial. I was on my own in the pub. That was really hard and very hard for my ex-wife and people around me.”

Morrissey, 61, is regarded as one of the UK’s most versatile actors whose many TV, film and stage roles have included the ruthless, monstrous Governor in The Walking Dead, Gordon Brown in The Deal and a dedicated detective in James Graham’s Sherwood.

Born in Liverpool, he grew up on a new council estate in Knotty Ash after the family’s back-to-back terrace house was demolished. The first of his desert island discs was You’ll Never Walk Alone by Gerry and the Pacemakers.

His father died when Morrissey was just 15. Joe Morrissey, a cobbler, was 54 when he suffered a fatal haemorrhage after a long-term and terminal blood disorder.

Morrissey told Laverne that he was in a “terrible state” after the death of his father, and reflected on the “trauma responses” – depression and anxiety – that followed.

He left school at 16 and spent six months travelling with a theatre company called Zip, based in Wolverhampton.

“I knew that, academically, I was never going to be able to go to university or anything – that was never going to happen to me,” he said. “So, I had to make it happen somewhere else.

“It was hard for my mum, but I knew I had to cut the strings and find independence. They say that hyper-independence is a trauma response. I do tend to cut off sometimes.”

He got sober after calling a former colleague he knew was in Alcoholics Anonymous and whose number he had kept for two years.

“I was in a terrible, terrible state, and I phoned him quite late, early in the morning time. He came round my house and just sat with me. And I’ve not drank since that day, really. So, it’s been tough.”

Morrissey added: “When I stopped drinking, I didn’t stop being an alcoholic. My behaviour was still very self-destructive for many years.” He said his career “rescued” him and that it makes him “feel safe”.

Morrissey said he was drawn to being an actor after watching an episode of the 1970s TV drama Colditz, starring Michael Bryant, during which the main character “pretended to go mad in order to escape” from a situation.

He said: “That troubled me. It really upset me. I identified with him, his character, his situation, and that sort of thing that bubbled up inside me. I wanted to find out how to control that or understand it.

“I went looking for acting, I went looking for a way out.”

He added: “When I’m in work, I feel safe. Not necessarily in control, but I feel it’s where I should be in my life. In my life, I’m less confident. I’m always looking for an exit strategy in every situation.

“I’m much better nowadays, but for a long time I was really telling myself I wasn’t enough and all that stuff, and that added to the alcoholism, and the inability to stop.”