Miley Cyrus on Why She Went Sober in 2019 and 2020

published 23 June 2020

Miley Cyrus committed to living a substance-free life six months ago, the singer revealed in her new interview with Variety today.

Cyrus had been particularly vocal about her use of marijuana in the past, going so far as to tell Jimmy Fallon that she had "always been very stoned" when she did her Tonight Show interviews in 2017.

The magazine asked Cyrus if there’s anything she looks back on saying and questioned what she was thinking at the time. That’s when she spoke about her new sober lifestyle, which was sparked by her vocal cord surgery at the end of last year.

"It’s been really important for me over the last year living a sober lifestyle, because I really wanted to polish up my craft," she said. "I had really big vocal surgery in November. I had freaking four weeks where I wasn’t allowed to talk. I was so ripped writing on the whiteboard, yelling at everybody," she said with a laugh. "I had this one big bicep from just yelling at mom and still trying to do meetings. But it prepared me for the stillness and the quietness."

"I’ve been sober sober for the past six months," she continued, when asked to what extent she’s been sober. "At the beginning, it was just about this vocal surgery. …But I had been thinking a lot about my mother. My mom was adopted, and I inherited some of the feelings she had, the abandonment feelings and wanting to prove that you’re wanted and valuable. My dad’s parents divorced when he was 3, so my dad raised himself. I did a lot of family history, which has a lot of addiction and mental health challenges. So just going through that and asking, 'Why am I the way that I am?' By understanding the past, we understand the present and the future much more clearly. I think therapy is great."

She added that explaining why she's chosen sobriety also comes with its challenges, especially for someone in her 20s. "It’s really hard because especially being young, there’s that stigma of 'you’re no fun,'" she said. "It’s like, 'honey, you can call me a lot of things, but I know that I’m fun.' The thing that I love about it is waking up 100 percent, 100 percent of the time. I don’t want to wake up feeling groggy. I want to wake up feeling ready."

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