Publish date: 2023-11-24

The breakup of the Beatles in 1970 left Starr feeling "absolutely lost," as he told People, and stress over an unsteady solo career in the years after left him with a "serious drinking problem" that only intensified. "It got progressively worse, and the blackouts got worse, and I didn't know where I'd been, what I'd done." He doesn't even remember some career highlights. "I've got photographs of me playing all over the world but I've absolutely no memory of it. I played Washington with the Beach Boys — or so they tell me," Starr told the VC Reporter. "But there's only a photo to prove it." 

In 1989, he went to court to stop the release of an album he'd recorded during an especially booze-heavy period, testifying that he was drinking as many as 16 bottles of wine each day. Starr realized he had a problem in the early '80s, but he didn't seek help for years because he felt like he was stuck, professionally. "I don't know how you do anything if you're not drunk," he recalled feeling to Rolling Stone, adding, "I couldn't play sober, but I also couldn't play as a drunk." He credits forming his Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band and going on a tour in 1989 as one of the main factors that helped him kick alcohol for good.

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