Miley Cyrus Explains How Sobriety ‘Changed My Entire Life’

Miley Cyrus has been completely sober for years, after she quit drinking in 2020 and smoking marijuana in 2017. Those choices have “changed my entire life” for the better, the Something Beautiful singer told Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1.

“I’ve learned this about myself over the years,” she prefaced. “The sobriety is like, that’s like my God. I need it, I live for it. I mean that it’s changed my entire life.”

Cyrus went on to reminisce about when Lowe visited her at her “psychedelic house that was painted black in Hidden Hills [California].” She said, “I was happy you came and saw me in that space. And I was thinking about it a lot today as I was on my way here, because I was so close to who’s sitting here right now [this current version of Cyrus]. But there was just life. It had more to teach me. It had more lessons.”

The singer reflected on briefly drinking again during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown before quitting for good, saying, “I know I needed to fall one more time. And I just, I had to. It just never would have happened this way. I just never would have been sitting here.” She admitted she needed to experience moments and albums that were not “my best” because “it all led me to writing ‘Flowers,’ which then was some sort of key right into the lock of all healing. It healed me so much.”

In November 2020, Cyrus discussed why she had chosen sobriety for herself in another interview with Zane Lowe, emphasizing it was a personal choice. She knew she wasn’t “a moderation person” and needed to quit drinking alcohol completely.

“I don’t think that everyone has to be sober, everyone has to do what’s best for them,” she said. “I don’t have a problem with drinking, I have a problem with the decisions I make once I go past [a certain] level....I’ve just been wanting to wake up 100 percent, 100 percent of the time.”