Richard Melville Hall, known as Moby, 55, is a multi-award winning American singer, songwriter and music producer. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. Single, with no children, he lives in LA.
I come from a family of addicts — my dad died from a drink-driving accident when I was around three years old and my mother was a pot-smoking hippie.
I fell in love with alcohol myself when I had my first drink at the age of just ten. A friend’s mum gave me a glass of champagne at a New Year’s Eve party. As soon as the liquid passed my lips, the world felt perfect. It was a feeling I hung on to for 34 years of alcoholism.
Richard Melville Hall, known as Moby, 55, (pictured) revealed how asking for help with alcoholism, taught him it’s OK to be vulnerable and admit your weakness
In the late 1990s things started to become really problematic. By then I was an established artist, having taken up music as a child, and I’d had hit singles and albums around the world. But I was living in New York and going out every night. By 2003 I was having 15 to 20 drinks every night.
My goal was to start at 10pm and finish at 8am. I avoided doing shots so I could keep drinking for longer. My favourite tipple was vodka and sparkling water with a slice of lime, or beer.
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I was also doing cocaine and ecstasy. Of course, the obvious downside was that alcohol and drugs only made me feel good for a few hours. I was so sick and anxious the rest of the time that I didn’t leave my house.
I don’t know what made October 18, 2008, special, but on that day a switch suddenly flipped in my brain and I finally realised my lifestyle wasn’t working. I was depressed to the point of wanting to kill myself.
Asking other people for help was one of the hardest things for me to do. When I was younger I’d played in punk rock bands and someone I’d known then was a reformed alcoholic who had been sober for two years, so I turned to them.
I joined a 12-step programme and it worked. I struggled for the first six months of sobriety, but I haven’t been tempted to drink in almost 12 years. That was a huge turning point in my life. I learned that it is OK to be vulnerable and admit your weaknesses.
Nowadays, I go to sleep at 10pm and wake at 5.30am. I go hiking, work on music and live an ordinary life. Yet I love it.
Moby’s album Reprise is out May 28.
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