Florence Welch celebrates seven years sober

3 February 2021, 11:59 | Updated: 3 February 2021, 16:26

Florence Welch of Florence + The Machine celebrates seven years of sobriety . Picture: Press/Vincent Haycock

By Jenny Mensah

The Florence + The Machine singer took to Instagram this week to mark the personal milestone and send her "love and support" to those struggling.

Florence Welch has celebrated seven years of being sober.

The Florence + The Machine singer took to Instagram on Tuesday (2 February) to mark the milestone by sharing an image of her hand touching a painted heart, which bore a "7" in its centre.

She captioned the photo: "I am 7 years sober today. I send my love and support to anyone who is struggling. If you are feeling shaky around ED issues, drugs or alcohol, I completely understand. The desire to disassociate is so strong. But please don’t give up. We are going to need you on the other side."

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Welch has previously talked about her issues with alcohol and drug abuse as well as eating disorders.

Speaking in Vogue in 2019, the Dog Days Are Over singer talked about her previous party girl existence - describing it as a "defining feature" of her personality, which would often lead her to be blackout drunk.

She mused: "Being a musician and a blackout drinker can lead you to have a rather coddled existence, and make it hard to grow up. Partying was, I felt, a defining feature of my personality – good at singing, good at drinking and good at taking drugs. (Note: if you think you are good at taking lots of drugs, it usually means you are not good at it and will have to stop eventually, or worse.)

"But the new-found thrill of leaving somewhere with all my belongings, having not been felt up by someone inappropriate in a car park, has still not left me. It feels miraculous to spend my Mondays working or reading rather than binge-watching Bake Off, unable to move, intermittently weeping into a pillow, hoping the bunting will block out the regret."

"I thought my relationship with food could never be normal," she said of her eating disorder. "I believed it was damaged beyond repair. But I can honestly say I don’t really think about it now. I don’t diet. I don’t fucking “cleanse”. I try not to think of any food as bad or good. It took me a long time, but the obsession has lifted. And I had to do the worst thing I could think of – start talking about it.

"An eating disorder wants you silent, ashamed, isolated. It will tell you anything to keep you all to itself. It’s probably telling you right now that you shouldn’t say its name, that it’s your friend. But your body is more than a thing to be looked at, it works with you, not against you. You do not beat your own heart."

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