Andrew Lloyd Webber just revealed that even though he had announced in 2016 that he had not had alcohol in two years but while he stopped drinking while producing School of Rock on Broadway at that time, he secretly went back to alcohol afterwards and sought help just over a year ago.
The 78-year-old legendary composer admitted to The Sunday Times newspaper, “I was doing what they call ‘white-knuckling’, without any back-up, and I started to worry that I wasn’t being creative.”
“And I thought, ‘But I’ve said to everybody that I’m not drinking.’ So, I started to drink secretly…” he confessed.
“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,” Andrew admitted.
The Cats composer opened up about going in a “downward spiral” in 2024 before getting sober and his family were deeply concerned.
He recalled, “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.”
Andrew visited an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting in Switzerland, and then others in the UK and he “adores” the sense of community he has found within the support groups.
He said, “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,” the Evita composer mentioned.
Andrew – who now attends a meeting every day – explained his turning point came when he heard someone else talking about the “stupidity” of addiction.
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,” Andrew said.
He continued, “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.”
“I’m lucky that nothing did go very wrong. I haven’t had some frightful accident. But then you begin to think of the near misses… I thought that I was getting away with it. The thing is, I am deeply sorry and I can only apologise to people if I made a mess,” Andrew Lloyd Webber said as he apologized for any hurt caused while he was under the influence.
