As she prepares for her long-awaited return to music, Jessica Simpson is taking time to acknowledge a deeply personal milestone.
Last week, the singer and television personality quietly commemorated her sixth year of sobriety by reposting a 2017 photo of herself that she now deems “unrecognisable”.
“6 years ago,” she wrote on her Instagram Stories alongside the image.
Jessica first posted the photo to her Instagram account in 2021, noting that it captured the “very moment” she decided to “to take back my light, show victory over my internal battle of self respect, and brave this world with piercing clarity”.
“Personally, to do this I needed to stop drinking alcohol because it kept my mind and heart circling in the same direction and quite honestly I was exhausted,” she wrote at the time.
“I wanted to feel the pain so I could carry it like a badge of honour. I wanted to live as a leader does and break cycles to advance forward ― never looking back with regret and remorse over any choice I have made and would make for the rest of my time here within this beautiful world.”
Watch an Entertainment Tonight report on Jessica Simpson’s sixth sober anniversary below:
After acknowledging the social stigma that still exists “around the word alcoholism or the label of an alcoholic,” Jessica added: “The drinking wasn’t the issue. I was.”
“I didn’t respect my own power. Today I do,” she explained. “I have made nice with the fears and I have accepted the parts of my life that are just sad. I own my personal power with soulful courage. I am wildly honest and comfortably open. I am free.”
Jessica spoke at length about her experiences with drug and alcohol addiction in her 2020 memoir, Open Book. Her “rock bottom” moment, she said, was waking up on Halloween in 2017 and having her first drink at seven am. By evening, she was too drunk to take her children trick-or-treating.
“I am ashamed to say that I don’t know who got them into their costumes that night,” she wrote in the book, according to People.
Since then, Jessica has made it a point to annually observe her sober anniversary on social media. Last year, she shared a video of herself singing along to her song Party Of One in a recording studio.
“The most important thing I have learned through the last five years without alcohol being a guard for escapism, is that I CAN and ALWAYS WILL get through it,” she wrote. “I am capable of pretty much anything I care enough about to put my mind to.”
If Jessica has her way, she may soon be spending more time in the studio.
In July, she told Bustle that she’s in talks for a docuseries that will chronicle the making of her first full-length studio album since 2010’s Happy Christmas. She also said she and her husband, Eric Johnson, were considering relocating from Los Angeles to Nashville as part of that professional reboot.
Help and support:
- If you need help with a drinking problem, call the Alcoholics Anonymous national helpline for free on 0800 9177 650 or email help@aamail.org.
- For advice on how to reduce drinking, visit Drinkaware’s website or Alcohol Change UK.
- Find alcohol addiction services near you using this NHS tool