Brad Pitt said that it was a "conscious" choice for him to quit smoking pot.

In his first print interview since Angelina Jolie went public about her double mastectomy, Pitt opened up about what convinced him to quit smoking pot in Esquire magazine. Pitt admitted his pot use only reached recreational levels, but he felt it was ultimately preventing him from reaching his potential.

Pitt said he quit smoking pot in the late '90s and hasn't looked back since.

"For a long time I thought I did too much damage-drug damage," said Pitt. "I was a bit of a drifter. A guy who felt he grew up in something of a vacuum and wanted to see things, wanted to be inspired. I followed that other thing. I spent years f*cking off. But then I got burnt out and felt that I was wasting my opportunity."

Pitt said that the decision to quit smoking pot came to him suddenly, rather than having a rock-bottom moment.

"It was an epiphany - a decision not to squander my opportunities," he said. "It was a feeling of, 'Get up.' Because otherwise, what's the point?"

Pitt has spoken about quitting pot in previous interviews and admitted that his pot use reached its peak in the '90s, when he was struggling to come to terms with his level of fame.

"I was hiding out from the celebrity thing. I was smoking way too much dope," he said to Hollywood Reporter. "I was sitting on the couch and just turning into a doughnut and I got really irritated with myself."

But these days, Pitt said that his personal and professional life is now at an all-time (natural) high.

"I have very few friends. I have a handful of close friends and I have my family... I'm making things. I just haven't known life to be any happier," he said.

Pitt also more recently kicked his addiction to nicotine. He said in an October 2011 interview that he was forced to quit after his kids caught him hiding off and having a sneaky cigarette when he thought they were away.