West End composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has revealed he is a "recovering alcoholic".
The 78-year-old said he had previously checked himself into a clinic to deal with his addiction, which he added did not work, before then attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings in Switzerland and the UK, which he said he "adored", in an interview with The Times.
Lloyd-Webber said: "I am a recovering alcoholic. Sixteen months ago I decided that I needed help and it's the best thing that ever happened to me.
"You think it’s secret, but it’s not, everybody knows. I started getting into a downhill spiral and about 18 months ago the family were in a desperate state. My wife was feeling she couldn’t go on."
The writer of songs behind musicals such as Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Phantom of the Opera added he is now attending a meeting every day while moving between his homes in London, Hampshire and New York.
He added: "People had always said: 'Oh no, you wouldn’t like that’, and you get this thought that it’s a load of meth drinkers coming in off the streets. Not at all.
"What I love about it is, you go into a room and everybody’s equal. I’ve made friends that I wouldn’t have thought possible."
Lloyd-Webber said he had been noticed at the meetings but said this was "not an issue".
The star said that the turning point in his battle with addiction was hearing someone else describe the "stupidity" of it.
He said: "It was about the ludicrous lengths you go to, the hiding and the pretending.
"When you’re a wine drinker, you don’t think of yourself as… well, alcoholics drink spirits, that was the shocking thing for me, when I realised that I was drinking vodka to hide it.
"You don’t really think. It’s just: ‘How am I going to get through the day?’ I got that thing of seriously worrying that I wasn’t writing, and panicked. ‘Maybe I’ll have a drink – OK, I’ve written something’, because it does slightly liberate you — but then it’s more and more and more."
The London-born composer went on to say that one of the songs he wrote while under the influence was No Matter What, which went on to be a hit for Irish boyband Boyzone.
It comes after Lloyd-Webber’s brother, cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, announced he will receive treatment for prostate cancer earlier this week, having celebrated his 75th birthday on Tuesday.
If you've been affected by the issues raised in this story, you can find support through the helplines listed here.
Source: Press Association
