SCOTT STAPP On Staying Sober: 'Drinking, At This Point In My Life, Is Not An Option'

In a new interview with Stereogum, CREED frontman Scott Stapp — who has been open about his past substance abuse issues — was asked if it is difficult maintaining sobriety on a cruise ship, like on the band's two sold-out "Summer Of '99" cruises earlier this year. He responded: "No, it's not. I create my own world. And I have my own, my entire situation laid out for me and a big 5,000-square-foot cabin. And I actually brought my sponsor out, just because he's my friend. Not because I was concerned about having a drink. But my sponsor was there with me, and I had a couple of friends with me. And that's what I do. I create my own environment, my own sober environment."

He continued: "Drinking, at this point in my life, it's not an option. That's where I'm at. I wake up every day and have notes on my phone that remind me throughout the day, drinking is not an option. And I stay in touch with my sponsor and try to surround myself with other people trying to stay sober. And in doing that, I've only had two or three slips in the last 10 years. Which is a tremendous amount of progress from where I came. And hoping the next 10 years there'll be no slips."

Back in 2019, Stapp credited his family with helping him achieve sobriety after years of abusing alcohol, Xanax and Percocet.

"My [then-]wife and my kids were critical in helping me get sober," he told Meltdown of the Detroit radio station WRIF. "It got to the point where it was either get sober or lose my wife and kids, man, and that's about the lowest rock bottom that I could possibly have gotten to. So they were critical."

According to Stapp, the rock and roll lifestyle "definitely" contributed to him "going down that wrong path. I just had so much in front of me, and being so naïve, walking into it, I just didn't know how to handle it, and it got a hold of me," he explained. "And around the same time, I had my first onset of depression. And you combine that with self-medicating, with alcohol and whatever else you can find, and it's a bad scenario, man. And it took me years to really find out what was going on. I had to get to the other side of it. And it's so nice to be … on the other side of a wild ride."

This past May, People reported that Stapp and his wife Jaclyn were headed for divorce after 18 years of marriage.

The 51-year-old rocker and Jaclyn are parents to daughter Milan and sons Daniel and Anthony, while Stapp is also dad to son Jagger with ex-wife Hillaree Burns.

CREED played its first two shows in 12 years in April as the headliners of the "Summer Of '99" cruise. The band performed aboard a second cruise, the "Summer Of '99 And Beyond", traveling from Florida's Port Canaveral to Nassau from April 27 to May 1. A full-fledged tour, also dubbed "Summer Of '99" tour, produced by Live Nation, kicked off on July 17 and wrapped on September 28. Another tour, "Are You Ready?", will kick off in November and run through December.

Photo credit: Matt Akana