Navigating a new path. After a long struggle with alcoholism and three previous rehab stays, Keith Urban was able to embrace sobriety thanks to his family’s tireless support.
“I don’t talk a lot about [my sobriety] because I love my audience being able to just come and have a great time,” the “Somebody Like You” crooner told the Sunday Times in April 2022. “I’ve nothing against drugs or alcohol. Everyone does what they want to do to have a great time. I just realized I’m allergic to it. Someone said, ‘You have an allergy? What happens when you drink?’ And I said, ‘I break out in cuffs.’”
He continued: “I had to find a different way to be in the world. I’m glad it didn’t change anything about my music. I wrote plenty of hit songs while drunk. I wrote plenty sober. I feel lucky it hasn’t defined my creativity.”
After Urban watched his father similarly struggle, he ultimately sought treatment three separate times. He completed a final rehab stay in 2006 shortly after he wed actress Nicole Kidman — at her insistence.
“You can try and hide it, smoke and mirrors and all, but then how do I visit every weekend?” the Big Little Lies alum told Vanity Fair in October 2007. “It’s been a huge lesson for me too.”
She added: “I’ve learned an enormous amount having a relationship with someone who is in recovery. I’m more than willing to walk it with him. The two of us are very committed to our relationship. … It was just another twist in my life: Here it goes. Hold on, and off we go! But it was painful, deeply painful.”
The former American Idol judge — who shares daughters Sunday and Faith with Kidman — cited his wife’s assistance as a major turning point in his sobriety journey.
“I guess I used to do a thing where I’d work out the ramifications of whatever I did and then decide whether it was worth it — and most of the time I decided it was going to be despite the problems it would cause,” Urban told The Sun in May 2022. “I’d go, ‘I know this is going to cause this issue, but it will be bloody fun.’ Night-time me hates daytime me, it’s so true. But the next morning, night-time me is nowhere to be found — he’s totally unaccountable.”
If you or anyone you know is facing substance abuse issues, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 for free and confidential information 24/7.
Scroll below for more of the Grammy winner’s most honest confessions about his sobriety:
