JUDAS PRIEST singer Rob Halford is celebrating 38 years of continuous sobriety
Earlier today (Saturday, January 6), Rob Halford shared a video message to social media saying: ” Hello, everyone. One day at a time for 38 years. Thank you, higher power, family, friends, metal maniacs, my sponsor Bob for gifting me these commemorative coins I treasure.
“Each one of you make this sober birthday happen. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is uncharted. Today is all that matters. Prayer, self-inventory, amending, holding out your hand — the simple things in life mean the most.
“To those of us on this same path we walk together, keep walking. To you who may be ready to take the first step, there’s a wonderful new life of unconditional blessings filled with love and acceptance waiting for you with open arms. I’m lifted up and grateful for every moment I live with you all.
“Thanks again, everyone. I love you very much.”
The 72-year old Rob Halford previously discussed how he manages to stay clean and sober while on tour in a 2020 interview with “Across The Board”. “It’s not easy,” he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET) at the time. “It’s very much a day at a time. You’re given all the tools and resources from your rehab experience. I use ’em every day. A lot of it is just like mental notes — talking things through. Sometimes I speak ’em out; a lot of it is internal. So that’s really vital on a day-to-day level of sobriety.
“When I was in rehab [in 1986], there’s anonymity in rehab, but at the same time, you have to tell everybody your life story, so everybody knew what I did. And I remember we talked about the fact that I’m gonna go back to this world of sex and drugs and rock and roll and booze.
“I don’t know how I’m gonna be able to cope, because it won’t be a gradual reimmersion into society, so to speak. I won’t be able to go tiny steps; I’m just gonna go straight into the deep end. I cannot go to work and say to my bandmates, ‘You can’t drink. You can’t do this. You can’t do that,’ because it’s control. Accept your powerlessness.
“I don’t think we ever in the band had a sit-down conversation about this, but I think that there was caring and understanding — as there still is,” Rob Halford continued. “But I’d be the last person to say that I have to set a set of rules, because then this whole business of living my life on my terms [turns into something] you push on to other people: ‘Well, now, you can’t do this,’ ‘You can’t do that.’ That’s just hypocrisy on the highest level.
“Even now, when we’re flying after a show, and the guys are having a beer or a cocktail or whatever, man, I would love that cold beer. I would love a slug of Jack and Coke. I can smell it, ’cause we’re in a plane together. It’s like this little angel on one side and the devil on the other side. My instant thought is I never wanna be sick again. I never, ever wanna feel that bad ever again. I never want to be in that terrible, dark, lonely place ever again. So it’s fleeting. But, again, it’s always there.
Rob Halford continued: “When I’m home, especially [during] this COVID thing, [my longtime partner] Thomas doesn’t drink. When I first met Thomas, he quit drinking. So that’s a support to me. I’m never really around alcohol that much, or drugs, when I’m not working.
“But, yeah, when my fans, or when PRIEST fans come to see us, yeah, they’re gonna have some drinks; they might have a couple of spliffs [and] do whatever else recreationally. They’re entitled to. And they are living their lives and they are partying and they are having the time of their lives, as they should. They don’t have an alcohol problem; they don’t have a drug addiction. There are people that can enjoy these things in life and it [has] no effect on them, in a physical sense and in a mental sense.
“So, it’s an absolute miracle,” Rob Halford added. “I can only say it’s a miracle that I’ve got that far from January the 6th, 1986 to December the 1st, 2020 without slipping once. And I’m not boasting, because it’s all the past — that’s the past; it’s gone. I live in the moment. I don’t think about yesterday or tomorrow; I’m living now.
“But I’m grateful that I’ve been able to get this far without failing. Not failing — that’s the wrong word. Without a slip off the wagon — whatever the term is. I’m grateful that I’ve been able to get this far and stay clean and sober. Because if I didn’t, who knows where I would have gone and where I would have ended up?”
In September 2020, Rob Halford‘s memoir, “Confess,” was released through Hachette Books, offering an intimate exploration of his path to sobriety. Collaborating with Ian Gittins, the co-writer of Nikki Sixx‘s “The Heroin Diaries,” Rob Halford delves into his personal journey, providing readers with a candid and revealing account of his experiences.