Five Finger Death Punch singer Ivan Moody has well-documented struggles in his past with staying sober. The 43-year-old frontman said that on one occasion he nearly died from an alcohol-related seizure. He woke up surrounded by EMTs and his daughter holding him while in tears.
Moody also said he had been to rehab five times before the continued success of his final trip. Moody celebrated five years sober earlier this week. The singer shared a clip via Instagram of marking the occasion with his daughter.
Moody told the Des Moines, Iowa radio station Laser 103.3 that the most challenging part of being off the road during C*VID was “being sober.”
“There was a lot of day drinking going on during CO*VID, and I’d read a lot of articles [about] a lot of domestic violence disputes — a lot of just unnecessary stuff,” he said.
“And I think it brought out the worst and unfortunately some of the best in people, or fortunately, for that matter. Myself, I had a really hard time, ’cause I have this diabolical voice that sits in the back of me, always trying to convince me that I’ve been sober long enough, I’ve been good long enough, and so what’s it really gonna damage if I wanted to turn the page and do something radical and bad again?”
He continued: “So, for me it was really finding a medium, finding out what was gonna keep me on the straight and narrow, I guess you’d say,” he explained. “And once again, whether it had been my kids, once again music stood up for me, because beyond my kids and my family there was really nothing to grab on to.”
Moody’s near-death experience was recounted in FFDP’s song and video for “The Tragic Truth.” Moody also credited Judas Priest singer Rob Halford and Hatebreed frontman Jamey Jasta with helping him stay sober.
“Rob Halford is the person that I called a lot of the time when I was in recovery,” he said. “I think he’s been sober now for going on 40 years — maybe, I think, a little longer than that; I could be wrong. But Jamey Jasta — another one. Jamey’s been sober now for [two decades]; Jonathan Davis so on and so forth. So these were all people that I looked to when I was struggling, and I was very, very lucky and blessed to have them on my team.”
