Lucy Hale Celebrates Sobriety: ‘I Want to Be Here’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Actress Lucy Hale is celebrating two years of sobriety, an achievement that she works for every day.
Hale had her first drink at 12 years old, and it quickly became her way of coping with life’s problems.
“I wasn’t always sloppy blacking out – a lot of the time I was – but it was very clear I was drinking to escape something even at a young age,” Hale said.
Even before Hale began her sobriety journey, she realized that she had a problem with alcohol. In her early 20s, she began to desire a better life but wasn’t able to find freedom from the addiction until she was 32.
“I remember shame after every experience drinking because my drinking was never normal,” she said.
“There was always a very strong desire to want to try to stop,” Hale continued. “I was just in this very sad cycle for all of my twenties. I wasn’t ready to give up drinking.”
The actress began going in and out of therapy at 23 but could never find more than a temporary reprieve from her alcohol addiction. She was finally able to give up alcohol for good nine years later when she reflected on the future she was forging herself.
“[I had] a deep fear of what would happen if I continued acting this way for a very long time,” she explained.
It has now been two years since Hale last had a drink. While extremely proud of this achievement and grateful to finally be free from her addiction, she still struggles to not relapse into old habits every day.
“[I] feel so strong in my path right now,” Hale said, adding that it’s still “deeply painful.”
“This is something I work on every day,” she continued. “I choose myself every moment of every day because I have to. Because I want to be here and I want to live a full life.”
Movieguide® previously reported:
In a recent interview, Lucy Hale opened up about her struggle with alcoholism and the freedom she has found since getting sober.
“I have never talked publicly about being sober—I have a little over a year of sobriety,” Hale said. “I have been working on getting sober since I was 20; I’m 33. It took time. It took patience with myself.”
Hale has struggled with alcohol since her first experience drinking when she was only 14.
“I just held on to that belief that the real Lucy came out when she was drinking,” Hale said. “It also quieted my mind…my brain just doesn’t shut off and it’s exhausting. I was a textbook binge drinker, blackout, wouldn’t remember what I did or what I said, which is scary.”
Hale found escape through alcohol, which made her unable to break the addiction for a long time. Her family and friends had tried to stage interventions, but nothing helped.
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