Keith Urban Is Grateful To Still Have His Music Career After Battle With Alcoholism

While countless performers have risen and fallen as they attempted to build a name for themselves in country music, veteran Keith Urban has been one dependable superstar who has generated great songs that set the way for others to follow.

His unique vocal prowess and ability to play the guitar helped create countless hit tracks that topped music charts globally. However, the singer's illustrious career was once marred by his battles with alcoholism and cocaine addiction, which forced him to spend time in treatment.

Fortunately, the past seems behind him, and he has now spoken up about his problems with addiction, his path to recovery, and how his wife Nicole Kidman helped him overcome those tough times.

During a recent sit down with The Sunday Times, Urban, 54, reminisced about times when he was bound by alcoholism and cocaine addiction, which he sought to balance with maintaining appearances for his music career.

"I don't talk a lot about it because I love my audience being able to just come and have a great time," Urban said during the interview. "I've nothing against drugs or alcohol. Everyone does what they want to do to have a great time. I just realized I'm allergic to it. Someone said, 'You have an allergy? What happens when you drink?' And I said, 'I break out in cuffs.'"

Urban said that despite being bound to his addictions at the time, he was still able to compose and perform his songs and that he was fortunate that it had no negative effect on his career.

"I'm glad it didn't change anything about my music. I wrote plenty of hit songs while drunk. I wrote plenty sober," he said. "I feel lucky it hasn't defined my creativity."

Although he was first hesitant to admit it, Urban could later confess to himself that growing up in an alcoholic household had a long-term impact on him.

"My dad was an alcoholic, so I grew up in an alcoholic house and it took me a long time to believe I was wired the same," Urban said.

The singer had earlier explained to Rolling Stone Australia last year that he was happy he made the right choice in his life and that he wished his dad had done the same. The Grammy award winner started his road to recovery when he entered Cumberland Heights, a treatment clinic in Nashville, in 1998, after realizing the gravity of his addiction.

Although he remained clean for a period after leaving the facility, the singer relapsed and resumed the habit for a long time before checking into another clinic in California months after meeting and marrying Kidman in 2006.

Urban claimed that his marriage to Kidman was the catalyst he needed to break free from his addiction. His addiction nearly led to their divorce at the outset of their marriage; nonetheless, the pair survived the period, and Kidman became a crucial pillar that helped the singer retrace his ways once more.

'I was born into her,' and that's how I feel. And for the first time in my life, I could shake off the shackles of addiction," the singer told Rolling Stones in 2021.

Urban was so moved by his wife's support throughout his rehabilitation that he penned it in his 2009 song "Thank You," which appeared on his "Defying Gravity" album. A year later, Urban and Kidman had their second daughter, Faith Margaret Kidman Urban, by surrogate, having welcomed their first child Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, in 2008.

With his addiction difficulties appearing unlikely to resurface, the singer plans to add more caps to his accomplishments with his forthcoming "The Speed of Now" World Tour.

Urban's largest tour in nearly four years will see the singer perform for fans in six countries across three continents, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, and Canada.

Because of its unpredictability and explosiveness, the tour, which will run from June to November, has already been lauded as a huge one by critics worldwide. When you combine that with Urban's contagious charisma, brilliant guitar playing, seamless fluidity, and repertoire of singles, the multi-event promises to be one of the musical highlights of the summer.