Ashley McBryde Reveals That She Has Been Sober for Over a Year

Ashley McBryde is at the top of her game, career-wise and on a personal level. She just released her The Devil I Know album, and she is nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year and Album of the Year at the upcoming 2023 CMA Awards.

She's also feeling better than ever physically. In a new interview on Today's Country Radio With Kelleigh Bannen, McBryde shares that she's been sober from alcohol for more than a year now.

"I didn't check the counter, and I haven't, but it's, it's four hundred and fifty something days," she shares. "I think the last time I sat with you it was 100 days."

The "Light on in the Kitchen" singer admits she's kept her sobriety journey pretty hush-hush, because she didn't want to jinx herself or slip back into old habits.

"What a white knuckle time to sit down and talk," she tells Bannen, "but I really didn't want to talk to anybody about it, even lightly, until a year had passed."

McBryde had concerns about "screwing it up," she says, "but it's so wonderful" now.

In their chat, McBryde and Bannen also discuss about how alcohol can creep into your life in various ways — especially in the music business — and that you may not realize why you're turning to alcohol until you sit down and figure out the root cause.

"Then when you find out the reasons that you're going so overboard all the time, was because of your inability to feel something," the country star acknowledges. "Your brain was like, 'I can't do it, I can't do it.' Well, that's weak, I'm not gonna accept that. I'd rather just hurt."

Now, she says, she has learned how to hurt and to admit to it, so that she doesn't turn to substances.

"I knew how to hurt before, and add extra to it for no reason," McBryde says. "Now, when I'm uncomfortable, I say out loud, 'I know how to be uncomfortable.'"

She admits to feeling shame about bragging in the past how she could drink someone "under the table."

"What an awful thing to admit. You are so weak that you have to drink an entire bottle of anything, unless just feel what you feel," she says.

McBryde is currently on tour in support of her Devil I Know album.

Evan Paul is the host of Taste of Country Nights, a syndicated radio show heard on more than 120 country radio stations nationwide, every night from 7PM to midnight. He plays the best new country music and interviews today's top stars, like Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Dan + Shay, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Chris Stapleton, Lady A, Morgan Wallen, + more!