Florence Welch Says Sobriety Was 'Lonely' at First — but 8 Years Later It's the 'Best Thing I Ever Did'

Florence Welch is reflecting on her decision to become sober eight years ago.

In a new interview with Munroe Bergdorf on the model's Spotify Original podcast The Way We Are, the Florence and the Machine frontwoman spoke about realizing alcohol consumption was a problem for her around the release of 2011's Ceremonials album and choosing to stop drinking.

"In terms of navigating being in the public eye, I think sobriety is the best thing I ever did," the English singer-songwriter, 35, said on the podcast.

"It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I had a problem with drinking because I was one of those drinkers where [it was all or nothing]," Welch told Bergdorf, 34. "If I enjoy my drinking, I can't control it and if I control my drinking, I don't enjoy it. That was a real wake-up call for me."

"During the Lungs era it was fine to be a chaotic mess, 'cause that's what that was," said the musician of Florence and the Machine's multiplatinum 2009 debut album, which featured singles including "Dog Days Are Over" and "Cosmic Love."

Around the release of the band's 2012 sophomore album Ceremonials, which topped the UK albums chart, earned two Grammy nominations and spawned the global hit single "Shake It Out," Welch said her drinking problem came to a head.

She continued, "When things got bigger in Ceremonials, and I was a 'big artist,' I was like, 'This has to be contained. This can't leak out into the public sphere.'"

"It was like the glamour and the grandeur of Ceremonials that created this shield of how chaotic it was behind the scenes — which is why I think that record is quite dark," said the two-time Grammy winner.

Bergdorf then revealed Ceremonials is her "favorite" Florence and the Machine album, as the record "spoke to" her while she was going through a "rocky time" in her gender transition.

"It's this shield of epic glamor and huge cathedral of sound that you're sort of hiding and alluding to all these issues that you're dealing with without kind of saying it," Welch said of the record.

While life with alcohol was proving difficult, Welch also experienced hardships trying to stop drinking.

"Sobriety was really lonely at the beginning," she said. "I had got into music to drink. I was like, 'These are the things I love the most. Singing, partying and alcohol — these are the things I'm good at.'"

Of the musicians she found herself around at the time, Welch said she was "pretty much the first to get sober" and noted that the first two years of sobriety were "a really hard slog."

"If anyone is out there and struggling in the first two years, it does get easier," she told listeners before speaking about the positives of sobriety. "It's given me a level of creative freedom. Once I drank, the alcohol would just tell me what to do, or who I was hanging out with, or whatever, and I had no real independence with it. It sort of ruled my whole life."

"Now, I can move through the world with so much more freedom and independence," declared Welch. "I'm so much more in tune with what I want, what I like and what I want to make."