Zach Bryan is speaking candidly about the damaging relationship he once had with alcohol, revealing that he drank as many as 15 beers a day. Bryan, 30, also said he was intoxicated while writing nearly every hit song of his career, as reported by Page Six.

The country star discussed his sobriety in a conversation with Matthew McConaughey released alongside his latest EP, “Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs.” He described a relentless drinking cycle that eventually coincided with severe panic attacks and fears that he was dying.

Zach Bryan Gets Candid About Sobriety in Matthew McConaughey Interview: ‘Why Am I Drinking?’ https://t.co/V0qu6bPeQp

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“When I got in the throes of drinking f—ing 15 beers in a day and I kept going with that cycle, I started getting these really, really severe panic attacks where my whole body went numb, and I thought I was going to have a stroke and die,” Bryan told McConaughey.

Bryan said the attacks sometimes left him curled up for days, but he initially dismissed the symptoms as nothing more than a hangover. A doctor rejected that explanation and told him something more serious was happening.

“[My doctor] said, ‘I think you have a pretty bad panic disorder. And if you quit drinking, that might help you a little bit.’ So I tried it, and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah.’”

Before quitting alcohol, Bryan treated drinking as an essential part of preparing to perform. His supposedly perfect routine included working out, showering, playing guitar, listening to Bon Iver and consuming four beers before taking the stage.

He believed three or four beers erased his stage fright and made performing possible, then continued drinking after each show. When he awakened with another performance ahead, he returned to alcohol to suppress the panic and anxiety again.

Bryan feared that pattern would never end, describing alcohol as though it were his only available answer to stage fright. “I thought that cycle was forever,” he said.

His managers asked whether he had ever attempted to perform without drinking, but Bryan viewed alcohol as part of a trusted ritual. He compared it to lucky socks and said the routine appeared to work because he was playing successful shows, paying his bills and employing 100 or 200 people.

Sober performances initially feel more frightening, according to Bryan, but the experience improves once he steps onto the stage. “But once I get on stage, it’s a lot more enjoyable,” he said.

Bryan described sober performing as more fun and compared the sensation to flying. He also acknowledged that years of denial helped bring him to the panic attacks and forced him to recognize his own role in the struggle.

“I was the issue the whole time,” he said. That realization also challenged his long held conviction that alcohol was necessary not only for performing, but for creating successful music.

“Every hit I ever had, I was pretty much drunk when I made it,” Bryan said. “And so I had the issue of thinking I was never going to have a good song again if I wasn’t under the influence.”

Bryan called that belief a “real curse” because it made him think he needed to repeat the same rituals to write music. His latest project ultimately gave him a chance to test that fear without alcohol.

“This is the first project I’ve ever done, this ‘Young Manhood’ thing, that I didn’t drink a lick,” he said. Bryan wrote and sang every word sober, an accomplishment he said proved he could create music without being under the influence.

He also admitted that he once considered sobriety a joke and judged people he believed could not control themselves. At the time, Bryan did not recognize that his own drinking had become a problem.

His outlook shifted during a solo 30-day motorcycle trip across the country, when he frequently stopped at bars and drank himself to sleep. Outside Seattle, he bought a 40-ounce Budweiser at a Pilot truck stop and sat beside his motorcycle, feeling emptier than when the trip began.

Bryan realized he had spent the journey chasing a “big romantic movie moment” but ended up alone in a parking lot, questioning what he was celebrating. He said that parking lot changed him and forced him to confront why he wanted to drink at that moment.

In November 2025, Bryan announced that he had been sober for two months and said alcohol had helped him cope with a “perpetual discontent” and a “consistent black hole” inside him. He now says sobriety has made him feel more creative, energized, content, and whole.

“I feel great. I feel content. I feel whole,” Bryan told McConaughey. “There’s nothing I need to get me by anymore.”

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