“I was doing what they call ‘white-knuckling’, without any back-up, and I started to worry that I wasn’t being creative,” he said in an interview with the Sunday Times.
As his family, including Madeleine Gurdon, his 63-year-old wife, became increasingly concerned about his drinking habits, Lloyd Webber finally decided to take quitting seriously.
“You think it’s secret [your drinking], but it’s not. Everybody knows,” he said. “I started getting into a downhill spiral and about 18 months ago, the family were in a desperate state. My wife was feeling [like] she couldn’t go on.”
He checked himself into a clinic and now attends Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings every day as he and his wife divide their time between homes in London, Hampshire and New York.
Lloyd Webber, who is selling the remainder of his once-extensive wine collection via Christie’s, the auction house, is happy to describe himself as a “recovering alcoholic”.
“Sixteen months ago, I decided that I needed help and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said.
The composer, who has won seven Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award and 14 Ivor Novellos, said he now “adores” attending AA meetings, even when he was with a “whole load of rednecks in St Louis”.
“It was great fun ... it’s rather different to a meeting in Chelsea,” Lloyd-Webber, who was knighted in 1992 before being elevated to the House of Lords in 1997, said.
“What I love about it is, you go into a room and everybody’s equal. I’ve made friends that I wouldn’t have thought possible.”
Lloyd-Webber said the turning point for addressing his drinking problem was hearing someone else describe the “stupidity” of addiction. “It was about the ludicrous lengths you go to, the hiding and the pretending,” he said.
He said he had turned to alcohol to help “liberate” himself when he had writer’s block.
“I got that thing of seriously worrying that I wasn’t writing, and panicked. ‘Maybe I’ll have a drink. Okay, I’ve written something.’ Because it does slightly liberate you – but then it’s more and more and more,” he said.
Lloyd-Webber admitted he had probably written some of his best-known songs while under the influence of drink, but he cannot remember which, apart from No Matter What, which was a big hit for Boyzone.
The peer’s wine cellar had achieved worldwide renown. At a 2011 Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong, a 12-bottle case of Château Pétrus 1982 fetched £48,000 . The overall auction brought in £3.5 million ($8.04m). But after the final Christie’s auction between April 22 and May 6 (local time), there will be nothing left.
The composer says his newfound sobriety has not affected his productivity.
Cats: The Jellicle Ball, a tribute to the 1980s drag scene, opened to positive reviews on Broadway, while he is writing two new musicals, one based on the 2006 film The Illusionist and another about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa.
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