Zach Bryan never thought about getting sober until a solo trip made him think about changing his lifestyle.
“I always thought sobriety was a joke because its people who couldn’t control themselves celebrating not being able to control themselves,” the country singer, 30, said in an interview with Matthew McConaughey uploaded via YouTube on Friday, October 16. “When I was drinking a lot, I thought, ‘Why can’t you control yourself?’ I never realized I had a problem.”
Bryan explained that he wanted to travel across the country via motorcycle with a group of friends for a month, but his pals couldn’t make it work due their obligations at home. So the musician decided to make the trek solo.
“One night I was drinking at the Grizzly, this bar in the West Village and I was like, ‘I’m leaving tomorrow’ … I wake up, get on my motorcycle and I stayed at all these national parks,” he said. “In 30 days I was on the road, running by all these towns, stopping in all these places.”
While having memorable experiences like eating lunch with veterans and skydiving out of antique planes, Bryan also spent his evenings at local watering holes.
“I was stopping at all these bars and drinking myself to sleep,” he recalled. “Waking up every morning, getting on my motorcycle thinking I was on some sort of soul journey.”
Bryan’s journey ultimately ended in Seattle and had an epiphany.
“After all this beautiful scenery, all these nights, all these bars I’ve been to, all this s*** that I’ve done, I was at this Pilot truck stop right outside of Seattle. I’ll never forget this for as long as I live,” he shared. “I go into this Pilot and I grab a 40 Budweiser and I’m sitting on the curb with my motorcycle in front of me. I’m drinking [the beer] and I’m thinking ‘What the hell was all that worth? Why did I do any of that? I feel emptier than when I left.’”
Bryan confessed that he felt like he “wasted 30 days” of his life trying to “chase this big moment” and he started to question why he was drinking.
“It was just me in a f***ing truck stop parking lot. And that’s when I said, ‘Why am I drinking right now? What am I celebrating?’ That’s when I kind of looked in the mirror,” he said. “I’m not the f***ing sober type either.”
While Bryan never thought he was the type who needed sobriety, he realized that he was “happier that way.”
“Quitting drinking has been really great. I’ve had a lot of fun,” he explained. “I enjoy writing again, I haven’t felt [like this] since I was 17. I feel like a kid again. I wake up and I’m ready to go, I want to jump in the pond. I want to play with the dog. I want to do everything.”
Even Bryan’s friends noticed a positive change in him since he became sober.
“At night time, after I quit drinking [my friends were] like, ‘Dude, you’re funnier now,’” he said.
However, Bryan finds weddings to be the most challenging occasion to navigate.
He admitted, “At weddings when everyone is talking s*** on everyone and there’s all this romanticism and everyone is dancing and stuff. Man, I’d really like to drink right now.”
