In a new conversation with Stereogum, Scott Stapp shared how he stays sober while on tour with Creed.
“No, it’s not. I create my own world,” the rocker replied when asked whether it was tough for him to keep his sobriety during the tour. “And I have my own, my entire situation laid out for me and a big 5,000-square-foot cabin.”
He continued, “And I actually brought my sponsor out, just because he’s my friend. Not because I was concerned about having a drink. But my sponsor was there with me, and I had a couple of friends with me. And that’s what I do. I create my own environment, my own sober environment.”
“Drinking, at this point in my life, it’s not an option. That’s where I’m at. I wake up every day and have notes on my phone that remind me throughout the day, drinking is not an option,” Stapp revealed. “And I stay in touch with my sponsor and try to surround myself with other people trying to stay sober.”
The singer also added, “And in doing that, I’ve only had two or three slips in the last 10 years. Which is a tremendous amount of progress from where I came. And hoping the next 10 years there’ll be no slips.”
Years of drug and alcohol abuse, along with mental health problems, caused Stapp to have a psychotic break. At the height of Creed’s fame, he struggled with depression and turned to substances to cope.
In 2019, Stapp thanked his family for supporting him in achieving sobriety after years of abusing alcohol, Xanax, and Percocet. The frontman said, “My [then-]wife and my kids were critical in helping me get sober. It got to the point where it was either get sober or lose my wife and kids, man, and that’s about the lowest rock bottom that I could possibly have gotten to. So they were critical.”
In May, Stapp and his wife, Jaclyn, got a divorce after 18 years of marriage. The rocker and Jaclyn have a daughter named Milan and two sons, Daniel and Anthony. Stapp also has a son named Jagger with his ex-wife, Hillaree Burns.