Jason Isbell Celebrates Ten Years Of Sobriety And Explains How He Did It

Over the years, Jason Isbell has been open about his journey with addiction. Now, he’s celebrating a major milestone on that front: he’s been sober for ten years, which he revealed on Twitter.

Last night, Isbell shared a photo of a tattoo on his right forearm, of ten tally marks, and wrote, “Ten years sober.” Ryley Walker, who has discussed his own struggles with addiction, asked, “How did you do it?” Isbell responded, “A conscious effort to be as grateful as possible, and the luck of having good people around me. Then eventually I started spending my addiction money on guitars and it got a bit easier.” Walker then offered a pat on the back, responding, “Good work homie.”

Isbell also got some kudos from David Crosby, who shared Isbell’s tweet and wrote, “Deep respect here my friend.”

In a 2020 interview with Uproxx, Isbell explained how being sober has impacted his creativity, saying, “When it came time to write Southeastern, I didn’t have anything else to do. I was sober and I didn’t have any kids and my day was my own. I had a lot of space to fill and I filled it by just sitting there writing, and working really hard on each individual lyric, and trying to make everything as perfect as I could. So when I went into the studio with that, I went in with a bomb strapped to my chest.”

In a 2019 Uproxx interview, Walker discussed what life on the road is like while sober, saying, “I have a routine now because before tour was about no routine. Tour was about, ‘Hey, let’s see what trouble we can get in. Let’s let our feet do the walking instead of our brains doing the thinking.’ I was always led by vibe. Now, the vibe is: I’m going to do this for my own benefit for once, instead of trying to impress anybody else by how much cocaine I can shove up my nose in one evening. I just go to a meeting every day. I used to look for crazy people like me in dive bars and now I look for crazy people like me in recovery meetings.”