Billy Idol reveals he’s “California sober” after struggling with substance abuse issues for years.
“I really started to think I should try and go forward and not be a drug addict anymore and stuff like that,” he told People in an interview published Wednesday.
“I’m, I suppose, ‘California sober.’ I just tell myself I can do what I want, but then I don’t do it. If I tell myself I can’t do anything, I want to do it. So I tell myself, ‘You can do anything you like.’ But I don’t actually do it,” he continued.
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The “Dancing with Myself” singer, 68, admitted that it “took a long time” for him to manage his addiction, but he is no longer “the same drug addicted person” that he was “in the ’80s.”
“I mean, AA would say, ‘You’re always a drug addict.’ And that may be true, but I don’t do anything that much anymore. I got over it somehow. I was really lucky that I could get over it because a lot of people can’t,” he said.
Idol added that he is now able to indulge in a “glass of wine every now and again,” but he also does “not have to do nothing.”
“But at the same time, I’m not the drug addict that I was in the peak ’70s, ’80s,” he reiterated.
California sober is a term that usually means you’ve mostly given up drugs and alcohol with the exception of marijuana.
The Generation X frontman praised some of his friends –– including guitarists Steve Stevens and Billy Morrison –– for being sober and helping him “a lot.”
In his 2014 memoir, “Dancing With Myself,” Idol revealed that there were a handful of times he would pass out in a nightclub and wake up in a hospital. He even overdosed outside of a nightclub one night in 1994.
“When you see the bad things start piling up, I started to have to listen. I had to start thinking about what I was doing . . . you get a realization moment, but then you got 10 years to fight to get clear,” he told Page Six in 2015.
He has since claimed that he has not done any hard drugs since 2003.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline at 800-662-4357.
