Ashley McBryde Will Celebrate Four Years of Sobriety This Year: ‘I Was Going to Die’

Fans know Ashley McBryde often draws from personal experiences when writing songs, case in point, her tracks about her alcohol addiction. For years, the Arkansas native has been very vocal about her sobriety journey. This year, she will be celebrating her fourth anniversary of sobriety. In a recent interview, she recalled the moment when she made the decision to turn her life around.  

One of McBryde’s songs that depicted her addiction was her song “Blackout Betty” from her 2023 album, The Devil I Know. The track depicts McBryde’s alter ego, Betty, who drinks too much and deals with the aftermath of being blackout drunk: “Lost your keys and you lost your phone / Last night's makeup, still half on / And you don't even know how you got home / It's time for you to grow up.” 

McBryde said in an interview that she was able to hide the fact that she was a drunk. “When it went off the rails, it went off the rails in a big way. And as I’ve had to say over the last three years, I’m a drunk. And if you find yourself wanting to be like, ‘No, you’re not.’ That’s how good I am at it,” she admits.  

“I’ve had people say, ‘I never really saw you as much of a drinker.’ And so now I can say, ‘if you were around me prior to three years, nine months, six weeks, and however many days ago, I was drunk. Sorry. I am sorry.”  

She never let her addiction affect her career and did not drink prior to a show. However, she felt like she needed to make up for it afterwards. “For some reason, my brain was like, ‘You didn’t drink till after a show, and now you have to drink as much as humanly possible.’ And so everybody that I work with, everybody I was close with, not even my parents knew the extent of it.”  

She knew that she needed to do something about it, fast. “I was going to die.”  

McBryde revealed that it was her team that staged the intervention to get her treated in a facility. “I woke up in a bed that’s not mine, in pajamas that aren’t mine, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, that must have been a doozy. I’m thirsty. I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know where water is, so I’ll just go find water.’ And when I went to find water, I found a living room, and in that living room was my team, Dana and John Peets and my day to day.”  

Teary-eyed, she recalled her team telling her, “They said, ‘We need you to stop.’ And I said, ‘I need me to stop too.’”  

McBryde knew how difficult it would be to have a career in country music and not drink. But becoming sober led to a business endeavor that was quite unexpected: a non-alcoholic bar, Redemption, on Broadway. “I’ve made the joke, I didn’t know not drinking came with a bar, but it’s wonderful. And it’s the only place on Broadway where you can order anything on the menu. It already comes without alcohol, and you’re welcome to put alcohol in it if you’d like to. Our bartenders are happy to do that for you, but everything you order, Martini McBryde, there’s no alcohol in there.”