In a new interview with GQ, Chris Stapleton admits that he "got into a drinking contest with myself" and lost before deciding to change his life. He was 23 when he moved to Nashville and was trying to live up to his idea of what a country singer-songwriter was. Now 45, Chris has been sober for several years now. "When you're younger, you feel like you have to do certain things in order to occupy some of these spaces, to make yourself feel like you're legit. You want to feel things. You want to be able to write about things authentically," Chris says. "If somebody working a different kind of job drank themselves to death in the name of being better at that job, it wouldn't make sense to anybody. We wouldn't say, 'Oh he must have been the greatest electrician who ever lived.'" His upcoming album, Higher, includes a track that addresses the thought process that accompanies excessive drinking. The album is set for release on November 10.