Ashley McBryde has had plenty of professional milestones to celebrate over the last few years. She has taken home awards from the CMA and the ACM as well as a Grammy. However, later this week the Arkansas native will celebrate a major personal milestone. Thanksgiving Day (November 29) will mark her 900th day of sobriety.
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McBryde doesn’t speak about her sobriety much. But, in a recent interview with People, she revealed that she has been on the wagon for almost two-and-a-half years. It seems fitting that she will celebrate her freedom from alcohol on a day meant for reflecting on things for which we’re thankful.
Ashley McBryde on Her Sobriety Milestone
Ashley McBryde spoke to People on the red carpet at last week’s CMA Awards. During their conversation, she told them about her sobriety journey and her upcoming milestone. “It’s awesome,” she said of her new lifestyle. “I was adding it up—I want to celebrate on the 900th day of being sober and I was like, ‘That’s a milestone! You should celebrate that.’ I looked, and it’s Thanksgiving Day, so it’s got a holiday built in this time,” she added. “That is quite a milestone and it’s one of the most important changes I’ve ever made.”
McBryde swore off the bottle in June 2022. However, she kept her budding sobriety private until she had a year of sobriety under her belt. She spoke to People about that in a November 2023 interview. “I decided that I wasn’t gonna talk about it at all until at least a year because what I didn’t need was people on social media being like, ‘Ashley McBryde swears of alcohol!’ All people are gonna do is just wait for you to screw up, and that’s really annoying,” she explained. “I did it for me. I didn’t do it for social media,” she added.
Benefits of Sobriety
McBryde went on to say that she looks and feels better than she has in years. Those weren’t the only changes she noticed, though. “If you had told me even ten years ago, you think you love your voice? You should hear it without drinking because with drinking comes smoking for me,” she said.
The Grammy winner said that she still encounters situations where she feels like she should drink. Then, she talks herself out of it. “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?” she said. “It takes a while to understand that’s what’s going on. Literally, it was punishing myself for doing good things. And when I stopped doing that, the good things got better.”
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