Florence Welch's lonely sobriety

20 June 2019

Florence Welch finds sobriety "lonely".

Florence Welch covers ES

The Florence and the Machine singer feels "grateful" that she was able to give up drinking alcohol away from the public eye and while she thinks it has been good for her in most ways, she can find life tougher on tour now.

She said: "I'm grateful that I was able to go and get sober away from the public eye. Most of the things in my life have got exponentially better from not drinking, but it's lonely, being sober on big tours."

The 32-year-old star thinks getting sober has helped with her feelings of anxiety.

She told ES magazine: "I think I've probably had it low-level, and sometimes extreme, for as long as I can remember. As a nervous kid, I was overly imaginative and overly sensitive. Stopping drinking and taking drugs has had a hugely helpful effect. They're not good for an anxious person."

And the 'Hunger' hitmaker admitted she has to be "really careful" when it comes to using social media because it is very easy for sites such as Instagram to send her on a downward spiral.

She said: "I really like Instagram, but I can't be on it for very long because it will send me totally insane...

"I have to be really careful, especially when I'm lonely on tour, and you think that it's going to help you feel less lonely.

"The 'compare and despair' thing is really difficult, and also the sense that you have to solidify your identity every day. That's tricky because I need a lot of quiet time and time not to be exposed or in the spotlight. So every time I post a picture I have a small panic attack."

Florence thinks she got too "bolshy" after finding fame and cut down on the interviews she did as she didn't want to overshadow her own work.

She said: "It did blow up quite quickly. When I first came out [on to the music scene], I was happy to be a bit bolshy. And then I started getting attacked for being too much. I mean, I was drunk a lot of the time, so maybe that was part of it. To be honest, I could just have been being a drunk t**t.

"I stopped doing as many interviews. I started to retreat. I didn't want the idea of becoming a personality to overshadow my music."

The full interview appears in this week's issue of ES Magazine, which is out now.