Keith UrbanNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – JUNE 06: Keith Urban performs on the main stage during CMA Fest 2025 at Nissan Stadium on June 06, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images)
By Gavin Boyle

Keith Urban explained how his marriage to Nicole Kidman inspired him to take his drinking problem seriously and learn how to live without alcohol.

“It took me a long time to get sober,” Urban told Rolling Stone in 2021. “Took me a long time to recognize my alcoholism. A long time, because I didn’t drink like my dad, so I compared everything to him. So it just took a long time for me. But I was able to finally make the right choice in my life, that I wish my dad would have made.”

The decision to give up drinking, however, did not come easy. Even after he began to realize he had a problem, Urban lived his life of addiction for years. He knew that one day he would reach an ultimatum and either give up drinking forever or allow it to destroy him.

 

“All through the years of drinking and doing drugs and all the rest of it, I always had this very specific voice inside of me that goes, ‘One day, you’re gonna come to a crossroads or a fork in the road, and it’ll be the final one,” Urban recalled.

That crossroads came shortly after he married Kidman and she confronted him about his substance abuse.

“It was like the ultimate fork-in-the-road moment in my life, and it was literally like you either get this right now or you are never, ever gonna get it right,” Urban said. “This is your one shot…It felt so obvious. I knew where I was going…[My marriage] was everything I was looking for and then beyond.”

Rehab was not easy. Urban spent three of the first four months of his marriage in a recovery facility, away from his wife. Nonetheless, Urban and Kidman knew this difficult season would be worth it for the long term impact it would have.

“But my wife stayed extraordinarily strong and loving, and my friends and family were there, and man, it’s just been really overwhelming,” Urban said. “I feel so much gratitude, and it feels really good to have gone through it and be where I am right now.”

While working in an industry that can often glamorize substance abuse, it is encouraging to see Urban so grateful for the freedom he has found by giving up that life for one of sobriety.