Tim McGraw reflects on how he turned to Faith Hill for help getting sober after taking a big shot – Daily Mail

Tim McGraw recounted turning to his wife Faith Hill for help getting sober after he caught himself drinking at eight in the morning before needing to wake their children.

In an essay for Esquire, McGraw, 54, recalled ‘feeling scared’ after he took a ‘big shot’ from their liquor cabinet despite his parental responsibilities. 

The moment served as a wake-up call for the country star, who quit drinking in 2008.   

‘I remember a moment when I was getting out of bed and going to the liquor cabinet and taking a big shot at 8:00 in the morning and thinking, I have to wake the kids up,’ he called.

‘I went straight to my wife and said, “This is where I’m at.” I was scared. She just grabbed me and hugged me and changed my life.’

McGraw initially used to have ‘a few drinks’ before shows to loosen up.

‘I used to have to have a few drinks to get on stage, because I’m sort of an innately shy person,’ he said on Oprah’s Master Class. ‘To step out on stage and to sing and be in front of people was nerve-wracking for me in a lot of ways. That was the way I got my courage — some liquid courage, with a little Jack Daniels.’

But eventually he realized he needed booze in order to perform.  

‘I couldn’t do it without [drinking],’ he revealed.

Once McGraw realized the habit could cost him ‘everything that I had in my life’, he decided to quit.

‘It got to the point where I knew that I drank too much,’ the singer recalled. ‘I knew that it was affecting my personal relationships, it was affecting my professional relationships, it was affecting my family. 

‘It was turning me into a person that I didn’t want to be… I was at a point where I could lose everything that I had in my life, first and foremost, my family. It [was] time to stop. And I stopped.’  

Since giving up alcohol, Tim lost 40 pounds and now works out multiple times a day though is on no strict diet.  

‘I am going to eat a cheeseburger today. I love Coke. Not as much as I used to. I like to eat, I like food. That is one of the reasons that I throw that extra hour [of exercise] in,’ he told People in 2018. 

The country star also said that if it wasn’t for his wife, ‘I’d be dead.’  

‘I would have partied too hard,’ he continued. ‘Faith saved my life in a lot of ways — from myself more than anything. I can go down a dark road sometimes, when you’re not feeling good about yourself, and she pulls me out. My wife makes me a better man.’ 

Faith has been married to Tim since 1996, and the couple share three children together: Gracie, 24, Maggie, 23, and Audrey, 19.