Keith Urban Knew He Had to Get Sober, Or Else

Keith Urban is celebrating 19 years of sobriety this year! After struggling with drugs and alcohol for years, his wife Nicole Kidman staged an intervention that completely changed his life.

Recently Urban opened up about the years he battled his addiction, saying there was always a voice inside his head telling him what was to come.

"Through the years of drinking and doing drugs," he shares with Apple Music's Zane Lowe, "I always had this very specific voice inside of me that goes, 'One day, you're gonna come to a crossroads or a fork in the road and it'll be the final one. You're either gonna choose to get out of this s--t or you're never gonna get out of it.'

"'That day is gonna come and it won't be like well, if you mess it up this time, maybe next time. There won't be a next time. And you'll know when it comes,'" he continues. "This went on for years."

Thanks to Kidman's help, that moment arrived the same year the couple were married.

"And in 2006, when that happened and my wife called an intervention on me, I knew that was it," he adds. "I'm like, 'Oh, this is that fork in the road. Here it is.'"

Why Did Keith Urban Get Sober?

Beating addiction is not an easy task, but Urban knew that something had to change. In addition to recognizing exactly what that little voice was telling him, he was also faced with a decision to get clean or lose out on the love of his life.

"She's just the one, that was it," Urban shared on the Armchair Expert podcast in 2020. "She's the one that I was searching for my whole life, and everything not only changed, but had to change, in me if I was going to go that road."

"It was literally like, 'You either get this right now, or you are never, ever going to get it right. This is your one shot,'" he continues. "Really, it felt so obvious."

His music career also kept him out of trouble. Urban says he would probably be in jail if it wasn't for his path to country music.

The country veteran has also been helpful with other artists struggling with the same problems he had. In fact, Brantley Gilbert says that if it wasn't for Urban, he wouldn't be here right now.

"If it weren't for him, I don't know if I'd be sober or be in the business anymore. I'd probably be dead," he told the Tennessean in 2017.