Dave Hughes has opened up about his journey to sobriety.
In an interview with FARE (the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education) as part of its Voices of Change series, Hughes revealed how he quit alcohol more than three decades ago after starting binge drinking when he was just a teenager.
‘From the age of 15 to the age of 21, I would get blackout drunk on the weekends, or whenever I had the opportunity,’ confessed the 52-year-old comedian.
Dave Hughes has opened up about his journey to sobriety. In an interview with FARE (the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education), Hughes revealed he quit alcohol more than three decades ago after starting binge drinking when he was just a teenager
‘You put yourself in such a vulnerable position. I used to get locked up a bit. I was never violent, but I would get found in the bloody street a mess, lying on the ground or something and I would end up in the clink.’
Hughes said his wake-up call came when he was 22 and he realised his behaviour had become ‘very dangerous’, so he decided to stop drinking.
‘It was around the end of October one year, and I basically thought to myself, “I don’t want to do this anymore,”‘ he added, recalling his original plan was to quit booze until Christmas Eve.
Hughes (pictured on May 6, 2007) previously told Daily Mail Australia that quitting alcohol and marijuana in the early ’90s made his life ‘so much better’
But when the holidays rolled around, he remembered how much better he felt when he didn’t drink, so he committed himself to never drinking again.
‘I was very unsettled. Stopping drinking definitely helped me focus 100 per cent,’ he said.
When it comes to being sober in social situations, Hughes admitted it was tough at first, but his friends and family were very supportive.
‘You do feel pressure certainly in social situations, especially when you first start to stop,’ he said.
‘From the age of 15 to the age of 21, I would get blackout drunk on the weekends, or whenever I had the opportunity,’ confessed the 52-year-old comedian
When it comes to being sober in social situations, Hughes admitted it was tough at first, but his friends and family were very supportive. (Pictured with his wife Holly Ife)
‘People look at you weird because you’re not drinking. They wonder why – but I was able to get through that.’
The 2Day FM radio host also saw huge changes in his mental health after getting sober, not to mention his improved physical well-being.
Hughes told Daily Mail Australia in 2020 that his uncertainty over how his mind and body would react to alcohol after years of sobriety had kept him firmly on the wagon.
To illustrate this point, he recalled a conversation he had years earlier with his wife Holly …….