Country music has a lengthy history of having songs about alcohol. But although they may sing about drinking, some country artists choose not to imbibe. These four country artists choose to never drink alcohol.
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Walker Hayes
Walker Hayes has been sober since 2016, but it hasn’t always been easy for him. He quit drinking when he had a realization that his next drink could very well be his last.
“I just woke up on a Saturday, and I just knew if I did this one more day, my body would be affected, some organ,” Hayes says on the Today Show. “I’m not a scientist, I’m not a doctor. I just woke up and it felt like if I do it one more day, I might die.”
In 2018, Hayes and his wife, Laney, tragically lost their seventh child, daughter Oakleigh Klover, shortly after she was born. Hayes tells the New York Post that he went to a bar to get drunk, but realized he forgot his wallet.
Josh Turner
Not only does Josh Turner not drink, but he’s never even tasted alcohol! A devout Christian, Turner has stayed away from any form of libations.
“I’ve never had a drink of alcohol in my life,” he tells the CBN. “I’ve never smoked a cigarette. That’s not to say I’m perfect. I’m not. I’m a sinner just like everybody else.”
Turner may not drink, but he occasionally has songs that reference alcohol. In 2020, he released Country State Of Mind, an album of cover songs, including the title track. “Country State Of Mind”, first recorded by Hank Williams Jr., begins with, “That hot old summer sun will make you beg for your next breath / So you best be on the creek bank laid in the shade Chewin’ on a hickory twig / Pass that bottle, I’ll have me a swig / I ain’t got a lot, but I think I got it made in the shade.”
Trace Adkins
Trace Adkins first went to rehab in the early 2000s, after his family staged an intervention. After relapsing, he attended rehab two more times, finally getting sober in 2014, following a drunken brawl he got in with an Adkins impersonator while on a cruise ship.
“I never had a second thought about it,” Adkins tells East Tennessean, speaking of his decision to get help. “I wasn’t afraid of that – being labeled or people looking at me differently because I went to rehab. I’d rather go to rehab than continue to do the stuff that I was doing. That was a lot worse.”
In 2021, Adkins included a humorous song, “It’s A Good Thing I Don’t Drink”, on his The Way I Wanna Go record.
Jake Owen
Jake Owen announced in 2021 that he was sober after realizing he was tired of having regrets about the way he acted while inebriated. Now, he says he wishes more people, especially country artists, would consider sobriety.
“I quit drinking four years ago,” Owen tells Country Now in 2025. “No one talks about it enough. You don’t need to drink alcohol to have a good time. You can sing songs about it, [and] you can have a fun time. … If I could go back and tell myself a lot of mistakes I made along the way, a lot of things I said to people that I shouldn’t have said, decisions I made that I could take back, I would say that those are always things you can give little insights to people.”
Photo by John Medina/Getty Images
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