Billy Joel is a sober man.
During a chat with The Los Angeles Times, the “Piano Man” was asked about his drinking these days, and admitted, “I stopped a couple of years ago. It wasn’t a big AA kick. I just got to a point where I’d had enough. I didn’t enjoy being completely inebriated, and it probably created more problems in my life than I needed.”
When pressed about wanting to drink after a show, Billy said, “I don’t need it now. I used to get offstage and be so wound up and adrenalized that I needed something to calm down to go to sleep. But I realized when you’re drinking yourself to sleep, you’re not really sleeping. You’re just passing out. (After the show) I go to sleep. It takes all my strength these days just to get through performance because it’s hard work. I leave it all on the stage.”
Over the years, Billy's problems with alcohol popped up frequently in the press, resulting in his last stay at the Betty Ford Clinic in 2005. “I can abuse alcohol if the demons get me. I'll go on a bender. It's happened to me before. That's why I went into rehab, I was on a binge, I was on a bender,” he explained at the time.
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