Lucy Hale shared in a recent interview that she’s two years sober after struggling with alcoholism in her 20s, including while starring on the hit teen drama TV series “Pretty Little Liars.”
Appearing on Tuesday’s episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Hale, now 34, candidly opened up about her journey, saying, “I remember shame after every experience drinking because my drinking was never normal.”
“I wasn’t always sloppy blacking out – a lot of the time I was – but it was very clear I was drinking to escape something even at a young age,” the actor said, adding that it didn’t become clear until her early twenties that she “had a problem.”
Hale said that while on “PLL,” she “didn’t talk about” what she was going through outside of work – including going to rehab when she was 23 years old, a decision she said she made herself at the time.
“That was a very pivotal moment in my life,” she added, later saying that at times her struggle “got really dark… I was very sad, I was very scared.”
Hale’s attempts at sobriety throughout that time included trying a variation of therapies, rehabs and medications because “there was always a very strong desire to want to try to stop. I was just in this very sad cycle for all of my twenties.”
“I wasn’t ready to give up drinking,” she also said, reflecting that that was “why I didn’t get sober until I was 32.” Hale cited a “deep fear of what would happen if I continued acting this way for a very long time…”
The “Truth or Dare” star also shared that she had contracted Covid-19 the week she decided to get sober, which helped her commit because she was “forced to stay home.”
“Without that I would’ve made excuses,” she said.
Two years into sobriety, Hale said that even though she “feels so strong in my path right now,” it’s still “deeply painful.”
“This is something I work on every day. I choose myself every moment of every day because I have to,” she said. “Because I want to be here, and I want to live a full life.”
