Tim McGraw Sobriety: Country Singer Traded Alcohol For Weight Training

Tim McGraw discovered sobriety at the end of a workout bench.

The country singer decided that, after years of drinking, he needed to quit for his family and for his own health. Now, instead of drinking, McGraw is hitting the gym, E! News reported.

Though he found sobriety five years ago, Tim McGraw is finally opening up about his decision to quit the bottle and straighten out his life and his health.

“I drank a lot from my point of view and I needed to stop,” the 45-year-old singer told People magazine. “I felt quitting was something I needed to do. I didn’t feel I had any moral high ground with my kids in the long run.”

For Tim McGraw, sobriety has helped give him the energy he needs to continue touring. The weight-training routine helps as well, he notes.”Working out is a great way to go out on stage,” McGraw says. “When I hit the stage, my adrenaline is going and I’m ready.”

Sobriety isn’t the only change Tim McGraw made for his health. According to Contact Music, “[t]he singer now uses the extra time to concentrate on his health by cutting sugar from his diet and training with martial arts expert Roger Yuan for 90-minute sessions, three times a day.”

“My workout program took the place of alcohol, and it’s really important … I was always in pretty good shape but for a while I let it go a little bit,” said McGraw, who showed off his six-pack abs for the magazine photo shoot. “There are aches and pains but I feel pretty young.”

Tim McGraw is opening up about sobriety just as his career is set to take a new shift. He has a new album, Two Lanes of Freedom, due out February 5.