Ed Sheeranis opening up about the sobering moment that eventually led him to quit drinking hard liquor.
The “Shivers” singer, 32, toldRolling Stonein a new interview that he spent his 20s being “a party boy” — but when he realized that his bad habits would have an impact on thefamily he was buildingwithwife Cherry Seaborn, he made some changes.
“Two months before [2-year-old daughter] Lyra was born, Cherry said, ‘If my waters break, do you really want someone else to drive me to the hospital?’ Because I was just drinking a lot,” he recalled. “And that’s when it clicked. I was like, ‘No, actually, I really don’t.’ And I don’t ever want to be pissed holding my kid. Ever, ever.”
Sheeran and Seabornwelcomed Lyrain August 2020, and have since become a family of four with the birth ofdaughter Jupiterin May 2022.
The singer-songwriter said that upon realizing he wanted to get his life in order, he learned to be content with the fact that his party days were now behind him.
Ed Sheeran.Liz Collins
“Having a couple of beers is one thing. But having a bottle of vodka is another thing. It’s just a realization of, ‘I’m getting into my thirties. Grow up! You’ve partied, you’ve had this experience. Be happy with that and just be done,'” he said. “I love red wine, and I love beer. I don’t know any old rockers that aren’t alcoholics or sober, and I didn’t want to be either.”
Sheeran has previously described himself as having an “addictive personality,” and in 2020, said he “would stay up and drink all night” during a particularly unhealthy stretch of hisxWorld Tour in 2015. He said at the time that he found moderation difficult, noting, “If I’m gonna drink, I kind of see no point in having a glass of wine. I’d rather have two bottles of wine.”
Meanwhile, he said in 2017 during an interview withThe Breakfast Clubthat at one point, he cut beer from his diet and shed 50 lbs.
Though Sheeran toldRSthat he was “always a drinker,” he also opened up about his foray into drugs, which began around age 24. The star said he experimented with a “few” substances besides weed over the years.
“I remember just being at a festival and being like, ‘Well, if all of my friends do it, it can’t be that bad.’ And then sort of dabbling. And then it just turns into a habit that you do once a week and then once a day and then, like, twice a day and then, like, without booze,” he recalled. “It just became bad vibes.”
“I would never, ever, ever touch anything again, because that’s how Jamal died,” he said. “And that’s just disrespectful to his memory to even, like, go near.”
“I had been working onSubtractfor a decade, trying to sculpt the perfect acoustic album, writing and recording hundreds of songs with a clear vision of what I thought it should be. Then at the start of 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental health, and ultimately the way I viewed music and art,” he said in a statement announcing the record. “Writing songs is my therapy. It helps me make sense of my feelings. I wrote without thought of what the songs would be, I just wrote whatever tumbled out. And in just over a week, I replaced a decade’s worth of work with my deepest darkest thoughts.”
The four-time Grammy Award winner added that the album is “opening the trapdoor into my soul.”
“For the first time I’m not trying to craft an album people will like, I’m merely putting something out that’s honest and true to where I am in my adult life,” he said. “This is last February’s diary entry and my way of making sense of it. This isSubtract.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
source: people.com
