Zac Efron's Photoshoot For The Hollywood Reporter

Zac Efron graces the cover of the May 9 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. "When you have success young, and you accept the good things, you have to accept all of it. You have to accept the moments of glory, but also a great responsibility," he says.

He has joined Alcoholics Anonymous and also has been seeing a therapist. "I just started going," he says. "And I think it's changed my life. I'm much more comfortable in my own skin. Things are so much easier now."

Still, he admits of his battle with addiction, "It's a never-ending struggle."

Efron and Seth Rogen met six or seven years ago at the Sunset Tower, where both were attending an awards party, when Efron was riding the High School Musical bandwagon. "He passed me, and I just stopped and was compelled to say something," recalls Efron. 

 "At some point, he dropped the knife, and I got hit pretty hard in the face -- and almost instantly the police were there to break up the fight," he says. Efron calls it "the most terrifying moment in my life."

 As he tries to change, he is living an ultrafit life, using weights and a rowing machine, and swimming 20 laps a day. He has the type of regimen that makes older men weep -- working out daily, eating healthily and even drinking pH-balanced water from a specially installed alkaline faucet.

 "On the grand scale of things, he's doing a pretty good job," says Rogen. "He was a child actor, and you don't need to have a sociology degree to see the pitfalls, especially as they transition to becoming an adult actor. But people are rooting for him. You can see his performance was incredibly good in the movie."

 "The best part of the shoot by far was hanging out with Seth and the guys," he says. "The hardest part? Every single day was more or less a party. You went into this kind of dream state: You show up, it's dark, and there's a raging party. Drive home, and the sun's up, go to sleep and then get back to set. Glow lights, girls in bikinis, electronic dance music blasting in between takes, people jumping around. It was pretty cool, but it was a lot. It was a lot. It sort of became real."