Brantley Gilbert Credits Keith Urban For Helping Him Beat His Addictions
It wasn’t that long ago that Brantley Gilbert was battling his demons in a seemingly unbeatable battle with addition. Addicted to alcohol and pain killers, the singer can now hardly stand to think of what his life was seven years ago.
After landing in the hospital with abdominal pain and pancreatitis, the Georgia native decided enough was enough and that better days were ahead.
“Knowing where I am now, looking back almost makes me sick to my stomach,” he explained in an interview with PEOPLE. “To go back to that frame of mind now is hard. Just what the hell was I thinking?”
His addictions began in his teenage years, growing to the point where he’d carry bottles of Jägermeister or vodka in a laptop bag just to keep his vice close. “Every hour and a half to two hours it’d be time to get two or three good pulls on the bottle. And every three or four hours it’s time for a pill or two,” he admitted.
Thanks to my boys at #511tacticalnashville for hookin it up last week….
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It was 2011 when Gilbert’s debauchery landed him in the hospital with a warning that he’d likely not reach his next birthday. Even still, giving up alcohol was a tough task for the now 33-year-old.
“I still put it off and was trying to slow down on my own, like, ‘All right I’m only gonna let myself take two pills today. I’m only gonna drink this much of my bottle and make a mark on the bottle.’ And it would work a couple days — and then somebody throws a party.”
It was in December of that year that he finally told his manager that he was ready for rehab after admitting he couldn’t do it alone. He spent the Christmas holidays away from his family recovering. Though the trial was hard, Gilbert credits fellow artist and recovering addict, Keith Urban, with giving him the push he needed to make it through.
Getting to share my work with my love @ambercochrangilbert and my boy…. #blessed
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“[It was] one of the best things that could have happened to me in my life,” Gilbert recalled of Urban’s visit to the facility. “I remember him telling me, “Hey man, it’s gonna be scary, it’s gonna freak you out, but it’s gonna be beautiful.’ That was the opposite of the way I felt, and it that gave me that extra kick to go, ‘I can do this.’”
After cleaning up his act, Gilbert was finally able to reconnect with his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Amber Cochran, later marrying her. The two wed in June 2015 and recently become parents to a sweet little boy named Barrett Hardy-Clay.
As for his second chance, Gilbert said, “God blessed me more than I could have ever known to ask to be blessed.”
