Margo Price Reveals She's Nearly 3 Months Sober In Heartfelt 'GQ' Essay

Margo Price got extremely vulnerable in a new essay she penned for GQ Magazine, and opened up about sobriety, how the pandemic has affected her, and why she decided to quit drinking.

In the essay, she wrote, "The longer you live, the more time you have to sit with death. I’ve been a witness to more loss than I should have seen in my early years. But I’m not afraid to die anymore. And I’m not afraid to live without the comfort of self-medicating. And so, during this tumultuous past year, I did the most rebellious thing I’ve ever done in my life: I quit drinking alcohol."

Price went on to explain that her drinking picked up during the late summer and early fall last year, just as the election ramped up. She explained, "The election and the political climate and the cyber bullying and threats were wearing on me. I thought about wiping my social media accounts off the face of the earth and retreating to the Mt. Baldy Zen Center in Los Angeles, the place Leonard Cohen had studied with the Buddhists and became a monk for a brief time. But I had a family to raise—a full-time job with overtime and no sick days. I loved it, but I also missed my career and the way things used to be. My life was a balancing act, and lots of days I fell very far off the tightrope."

Worried about her career that was beginning to take off, and because of the state of the world, she continued to drink, but on January 8, 2021, she decided it was time to have her last drink. And although she had originally planned to quite for a short time, the singer/songwriter read a book that made her want to quit for good; Holly Whitaker's Quit Like a Woman. She recalled, "For the first time in my life, I felt like I was being told the truth about alcohol—a narcotic that is made from ethanol. I’d always known drinking was bad for my health, but this was eye-opening on so many levels."

Margo added that she doesn't consider herself an alcoholic, does not attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and explained how giving up drinking has had a positive effect on her life. She said, "But I also believe that quitting drinking has made parenting and work easier. I can’t wait to return to traveling and playing shows, but in the meantime, I’m enjoying life like never before. I feel so healthy and full of energy. My mind is clear and my heart is full."

Read Margo's full essay on GQ.com.

Photo: Getty Images