Tom Cridland nearly lost his life to alcohol — until Sir Elton John’s commitment to sobriety inspired him to do the same.
“At my lowest point, I could have lost my life. I fell down the stairs at Slough station and cut my head open,” the London resident told The Mirror.
“I once drank 20 cans of Stella in one sitting and couldn’t move for about a week after. Sometimes, my stomach was in so much pain that I couldn’t eat for days.”
Cridland, now 33, was known to turn a casual drink with friends into a booze-fueled bender and “wasn’t satisfied until I passed out,” spending hundreds attending parties and making “terrible business decisions, he recalled.
“I could not drink anything for 10 days but then spend an entire week boozing and blacking out,” he admitted.
It wasn’t until he was drunk in front of his in-laws and “made a complete fool” of himself while dining at a “nice restaurant” that he decided to turn his life around.
“I was mortified,” he said. “That got me to take it one day at a time.”
He once feared that being sober would make him “boring,” but looking at the “Rocketman” singer’s “colorful and larger-than-life existence,” Cridland realized that wasn’t true.
The 76-year-old Grammy winner, who struggled with addiction and has been sober for more than three decades, helped him through his “darkest times,” and on Oct. 13, 2017, Cridland quit booze for good.
While he came close to relapsing during the COVID-19 pandemic, he listened to Elton John every day. He also taught himself how to play the piano to get him through — and even toured with an Elton John tribute band.
“If I hadn’t gone sober, I would be chain smoking and heavily drinking now,” he said. “I’d probably have physical and mental health problems, or I could have even died if I’d continued the way I was.”
Now, he no longer feels like his life “is spiraling out of control.”
“There are things I miss — like staying up late and wondering where the night will take you — but I’m at the stage where I can happily hang out with my friends while they’re boozing heavily and stay sober,” Cridland said.
He admitted: “It’s nice to not wake up several times a week and wonder how I got home.”
In March 2023, with help from the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Cridland got to meet his idol at the star’s buzzy Oscar party. Prodded by his wife, Debra, to approach the superstar, he finally got to shake hands with the person who helped him through sobriety.
“I went over and thanked him for influencing me to quit drinking six years ago,” he said. “It was a bucket list moment and he was really kind.”
To anyone else struggling with addiction, Cridland offers three simple words: “Ask for help.”
“It’s very easy to cave in without support. You may need to go to rehab or see a counselor, there’s places you can go for free to get yourself help,” he said. “Accept that you’ve got to put your health first — you don’t need to do it alone.”
