Ashley McBryde celebrated her 900th day of sobriety. The singer-songwriter spoke out about the milestone, which took place on Thanksgiving Day, on social media, while working out in a gym.
“The gut punch (understatement) when I realized a choice HAD to be made,” McBryde captioned the video. “It was either continue and die or stop and learn to live. The pain I caused and was in myself… it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever chosen to examine and take action on. And the best decision I’ve ever made. 900 days sober is worth celebrating. And whatever day you may be on is worth celebrating too.”
View this post on Instagram
Ahead of the recent CMA Awards, where McBryde was nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year (which went to Lainey Wilson), McBryde shared how life has been since she stopped drinking in 2022.
“I’ll still encounter a situation where I’ll be like, ‘Oh, normally I would drink about this,’” McBryde tells People. “And I go ahead and sit with that feeling and I’m like, ‘Okay, you had a great show or you had a great interview, or you had a great interaction, or whatever. Why on earth would you punish yourself for that?’”
The 41-year-old is rightfully proud of being able to quit drinking. But even she never anticipated how much every aspect of her life would improve when she cut out alcohol.
“II’s one of the most important changes I’ve ever made … If you had told me even ten years ago, you think you love your voice? You should hear it without drinking, because along with drinking comes smoking for me,'” McBryde reflects.
There’s a song on McBryde’s latest The Devil I Know album, “Blackout Betty,” which says, ‘Why can’t I have just one glass of wine? Hey, I’m a real piece of sh– sometimes.'” It was written when McBryde was still in the throes of alcohol, and now serves as a reminder of how far she has come.
“At the time, I was. Pretty often,” McBryde says on Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen. “But you’ll hear it in context and you’ll be like, ‘Yeah, it’s kind of said in a jabbing you in the ribs kind of way’… And I know that my therapist would be like, ‘We’re not going to say that I’m a piece of sh– sometimes. We can say I’m messy, we can say I’m complicated.’ But at the time, it was absolute truth. I mean, I wrote the song hungover.”
It was drinking that McBryde used to numb the pain. Since learning other, healthier coping mechanisms, the Arkansas native is in awe of how much drinking became a detrimental crutch for her.
“I don’t have to go hide because I’m not a weenie,” McBryde says. “When I was like, ‘You have no idea how much I can drink. I can drink you under the table,’ what an awful thing to admit. You are so weak that you have to drink an entire bottle of anything instead of just feel what you feel.”
McBryde will wrap up her run with Cody Johnson on his Leather Tour in December, returning in 2025 to join him on his Leather Deluxe Tour, as well as headline many of her own shows. “Ain’t Enough Cowboy Songs,” her new single, will be out on December 6.
Find all of McBryde’s music and tour dates at AshleyMcBryde.com.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the CMA