Lady A’s Charles Kelley Opens Up About His Decision To Get Sober

Charles Kelley, the lead singer of country group Lady A, is reflecting on his decision to quit drinking in the new Hulu docuseries “It’s All Country.”

The band, which also includes Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood, made headlines in August 2022 when they postponed several of their concerts to allow Kelley to complete inpatient treatment for alcohol use.

In the docuseries, Charles Kelley opens up about the pivotal moment when he realized he needed to seek help.

In “It’s All Country,” Kelley emphasized the importance of being “more honest” and transparent with the band’s fans about his struggles.

“Success is a double-edged sword, for sure. You know, once you know what it feels like, and once you’ve been out there, it’s a drug in itself,” the 43-year-old said in the second episode, per Us Weekly. “There is a lot of doubt that can come in and there’s just a lot of, I think, keeping your ego in check. I had to come back from treatment.”

He added, “I went to this place in Utah for a month, and we were kind of talking to our team about, you know, ‘What do we say? Why are we canceling the tour?’”

Kelley has been married to Cassie McConnell since 2009 and in a 2023 interview on “CBS Mornings”, McConnell candidly shared that she had been planning to “meet with a divorce attorney” before Kelley decided to go to rehab.

However, since Kelley completed his treatment and committed to sobriety, McConnell has expressed being “really proud” of his dedication to making lasting changes. The couple, who share a son, Ward, born in 2016, have navigated this challenging chapter together, with McConnell supporting her husband’s path to recovery.

“When he was in rehab and I went out there for family week, one of the first messages you receive is, ‘You’re gonna have to do just as much work here.’ And I remember being so mad,” McConnell said at the time. “Like, you did this. And now I have to do all of this work too? But … it affects every person in that family system. So, I could’ve chosen not to do the work, but then I have to live with the way that I’ve been affected and unhealed. So, whether Charles and I were in a marriage or not, whether I saw him again for the rest of my life, I still had to deal with what I had gone through.”

The Lady A member further revealed that getting sober was the “best decision [he’s] ever made in [his] life.”

“It wasn’t my intention to really share my story so much. It kind of took on this thing where I felt like I wanted to be honest with the fans and the people about what I was going through,” Kelley said. “And it just kind of snowballed to where you start seeing that people are actually connecting to the story and it could help them in some way.”

He added, “I just think it’s such a common occurrence and we all struggle with it. The stage of career I’m at and the stage of life I’m in, I wanna be able to give something back, too, in a positive way — even if it’s just a little bit of encouragement.”

Kelley shared on “CBS Mornings “that he had attempted to quit drinking in the past but had never considered going to rehab because he was afraid. He explained that he had always associated rehab with people who had severe alcohol problems, not understanding that alcohol can affect individuals in various ways. This realization ultimately led him to seek treatment, marking a pivotal moment in his journey to sobriety.

“What I’ve learned is, there’s degrees of alcoholics,” Kelley said. “You know, I think that’s one of the things too that I want to even share is, like, just because you’re not living on the street, or you’re not waking up in a bush, like some stories you may hear, it can get there.”

This time, Kelley made the decision to give rehab a chance for a month—and it proved to be the right choice.

He credits several tools that helped him succeed in his recovery, including attending numerous group meetings with others facing similar struggles, working closely with a case manager, and using a device he blows into every morning and night as part of his routine.

Kelley emphasized that his efforts toward sobriety are not just for his own well-being, but also for the sake of his wife, his band, and everyone else around him.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.