If I have a problem, stuff's going through my head, I feel like using, I usually go and talk to my dad... I decided to get sober a lot younger than he did. He first tried to get sober when he was like 32, I believe.
The first thought that I had about really trying to get sober was, 'Man, I could do a lot of good in the world. I can lead by example and just be this heroic recovery guy.' And that's just a bad reason to get sober. You can't get sober for anybody's benefit, let alone the world at large. You really got to do it for yourself.
I think a lot of people are scared, and I know I was scared to get sober, at least using this as an excuse; 'I don't want to be one of those sober people.' And I don't think you have to be. I think you can be one of those people who happens to be sober.
For a lot of folks who get sober, the process of getting and staying sober becomes their higher power, and it becomes a religion that sort of consumes a whole lot of them. I just don't think that that's necessary. I think that that can be a side note rather than the story of your life.
When you first get sober, you feel like a superhero. You feel real emotion because you've been suppressing it forever. It's so much easier to navigate what's important.
I'd always thought that if I could get sober and stay sober, I would be able to have a career making music. My drug and alcohol addiction was the one thing holding me back. I had finally gotten the tools to stay sober, and it was just a matter of writing the songs.
At 3 o'clock in the morning on tour when you're sober is a lot less fun than 3 a.m. when you're drunk in a bar or in a nightclub. But having said that, 9 in the morning on tour sober is immeasurably better than 9 a.m. on tour when you're hung over and feeling like death.
Getting sober just exploded my life. Now I have a much clearer sense of myself and what I can and can't do. I am more successful than I have ever been. I feel very positive where I never did before, and I think that's all a direct result of getting sober.
When I decided to get sober, there were a lot of chemical imbalances that came along with that, physically as well as mentally.
It was a slow process. You gotta remember I hadn't recorded a song sober in seven years. So it took me awhile to even feel like I could record a song sober.
So I kind of lost track for a while, then I came back, I pulled myself together and I decided when I was 15 that I'm going to get sober and I'm going to become an actress.
Anybody that's not supportive of me staying sober obviously has to go. But on the other hand, there are not really a lot of people who don't want me to stay sober. I was a nightmare.
It's like a relay race of being ignored. It is really challenging, but whenever I get asked that stuff, I feel really self-conscious about it. I feel really lucky because we have a lot of help. When I first began to be a dad with Gwen [Stefani], I was amazed at what she went through.
Relapse is very dangerous. However, relapse can be a symptom of the disease. Sometimes there are multiple relapses before you get sober and stay sober.
There isn't just one way to get healthy and sober and to stop using.
Donald Trump's a hell of a performer, he's a hell of an entertainer. If you put him on and let him say his crazy stuff, you're going to get a lot of viewers. If you take him off and have some sober discussion about what's going on in Syria, you're going to lose 80 percent of your audience.
I understand and get when kids and teenagers feel like they're alone and it's not going to get better. My advice is that there is a support system out there, there are a lot of people who have been through what you're going through and are going through it now.