Tim McGraw's Newfound Sobriety Has 'Improved Marriage'

Tim McGraw's Newfound Sobriety Has 'Improved Marriage'

Tim Mcgraw gave up the booze for good back in 2008, and now five years later the country star has reflected on the profound effect giving up the booze has made on his life in an interview with People magazine.

His relationship to wife Faith Hill, he says, is one of the areas of his life that has improved considerably since packing in drinking, with the singer's sobriety beginning when he first noticed that the drink was beginning to affect him on a very personal level. He reveals to the magazine: “I wasn’t a beer drinker. I was more a whiskey drinker. And I wouldn’t just have a drink. If I was going to drink, I’d have some drinks. People were worried about me. It was to the point where I felt it was negatively affecting my relationships and getting in the way of things I wanted to accomplish in life. So I quit… I am probably less embarrassing to her now.”

As well as improving on his marriage, McGraw has used the time he used to spend searching for the bottom of numerous bottles to concentrate on his health now, enlisting the help martial arts expert Roger Yuan for three 90-minute sessions a day. The workout firmly took over from the booze for McGraw, who shows off the effects of his new workout programme in the photo-shoot for the magazine, and boy can you tell where his efforts have been heading: straight to his abs. He went on to say, about his workout regimes, "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. There are aches and pains but I feel pretty young.”

McGraw is currently at work getting ready for the release of his new album, which is released next week, and for his Two Lanes of Freedom tour, which kicks off in in May.