Adele Quit Drinking Three Months Ago, Admits She Was "Borderline Alcoholic" In Her Twenties

By Emily Richardson | Celebrity | October 18, 2023 |

By Emily Richardson | Celebrity | October 18, 2023 |

On Saturday night, Adele informed the audience at her Vegas residency that she’d quit drinking about three-and-a-half months ago. She said, “It’s boring,” and she misses alcohol, but admitted, “I was literally borderline alcoholic for quite a lot of my 20s.” Then Adele told a fan: “So enjoy your whiskey sour. I’m very, very jealous.” I’ll bet!

Like many of us, 35-year-old Adele has a complicated relationship with booze. Two years ago, she told Vogue that her drinking intensified during the 2020 lockdown, and she began starting “earlier and earlier” in the day. She said her first “emergency run at the grocery store” during the pandemic was for her favorite rosé, “Whispering Angel.” And ketchup.

Adele explained that both her estranged father and Amy Winehouse influenced her views on booze:

“I got really famous right as Amy Winehouse died,” she says. “And we watched her die right in front of our eyes.” Adele was worried that she too could spiral out of control.

“I’ve always had a very close relationship with alcohol. I was always very fascinated by alcohol. It’s what kept my dad from me. So I always wanted to know what was so great about it.” But different characters come out when you’re drunk, she says, and once you look a little reckless, the press really wants to make a story out of you. “They descend, and descend, and descend on you, which drives you fucking mad.”

In her one-on-one with Oprah back in November 2021, Adele talked about her relationship with her father, Mark Evans. She reconnected with him about a month before he died in May 2021. Adele says the meeting gave her closure, and, after his passing, she made the decision to quit drinking:

“It [alcohol] took my dad from me. Once I realized I had to do a lot to work on myself, I stopped drinking and started working out a lot.”

“That’s one great way of really sort of getting to know yourself, is just drinking water and being sober as anything.”

Obviously, Adele began drinking again in the two years since her Oprah interview. But now she’s back off booze. Good for her! And if she ends up going back to drinking, that’s OK, too. It’s her journey and it’s not easy.

I’m the same age as Adele, and I quit booze back in April (I was super inspired by Survivor’s Carolyn Wiger and Jason Ritter [I know, what a combo]). I’ve noticed a lot of other millennials making the same decision. We binge-drank our twenties away, and now we’ve finally said “enough.” Still, I don’t disagree with Adele’s assessment that sober life is “boring.” Especially at first. Luckily, “boring” is a helluva lot better than the crippling shame and anxiety that come with blacking out on the reg. Cheers to being boring!