Billy Idol opens up about his “California sober” lifestyle

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Billy Idol is opening up to People about his path to sobriety, revealing that he’s currently “California sober.” 

The rocker says he decided “not be a drug addict anymore” after he was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident in 1990, but his sobriety didn’t happen overnight. 

“It took a long time, but gradually I did achieve some sort of discipline where I’m not really the same kind of guy I was in the ’80s,” he says. “I’m not the same drug addicted person.”

“I mean, AA would say, ‘You’re always a drug addict.’ And that may be true, but I don’t do anything that much anymore. I got over it somehow,” he adds, noting, “I was really lucky that I could get over it because a lot of people can’t.” 

Idol says his “California sober” lifestyle means he’ll have the occasional glass of wine, sharing, “I don’t have to do nothing.” 

“I just tell myself I can do what I want, but then I don’t do it,” he says. “If I tell myself I can’t do anything, I want to do it. So I tell myself, ‘You can do anything you like.’ But I don’t actually do it.”

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