The singer previously admitted to drinking up to 10 pints a night until a conversation took place with his wife, Cherry Seaborn, while she was pregnant with their first daughter. “Two months before Lyra was born, Cherry said, ‘If my waters break, do you really want someone else to drive me to the hospital?’ Because I was just drinking a lot,” he recalled. “I was like, ‘No, actually, I really don’t.’ And I don’t ever want to be pissed [drunk] holding my kid. Ever, ever.”
His relationship to drugs further changed after the death of his best friend, Jamal Edwards. “I would never, ever, ever touch anything again, because that’s how Jamal died,” he told Rolling Stone in 2023, noting that his death further led Ed to confront his history of depression. He said of his drug use beforehand, “It just turns into a habit that you do once a week and then once a day and then, like, twice a day and then, like, without booze. It just became bad vibes.”
In a new episode of Call Her Daddy, Ed was asked what the most embarrassing drunken escapade he’d had was — which was being locked out of his hotel room totally nude (save for a napkin) while trying to find the bathroom one night. “I’m sober at the moment. So that’s definitely helping the not doing stupid shit,” Ed added.
Noting that things are “good,” he continued, “I saw the schedule for this year’s album release. Basically, I’m flying all around the world and then flying home and being dad as well. I don’t want to then add on an extra layer of tiredness on that. So I’m just gonna not drink and be very focused and energized.”
Instead, he prefers to relax nowadays by putting on a movie. “I also find when you drink, you never really have a proper sleep anyway because there’s so much sugar in your body,” he continued.
“I’m not gonna be sober forever, but I’ve definitely changed my relationship with alcohol because I used to drink every single day,” he added. “I’m not a spirits guy, I do beer a little bit, but I’m more of a wine guy at the end of the day. But now I’m not doing that. Me and my wife do date night once a week and I feel like that’ll be the time I do start drinking. We’ll do a bottle of wine together that night rather than, like, every single night having to have something.”
You can watch the full interview with Ed here.
