Elton John Marks 25 Years of Sobriety With Cake Celebration

Elton John is celebrating 25 years of sobriety. (Getty Images)
Elton John is celebrating 25 years of sobriety. (Getty Images)

Elton John has reason to celebrate today — he's been sober for a quarter-century.

The British crooner, 68, marked the milestone Wednesday on Instagram, writing, "25 years of sobriety today. One day at a time," with hashtags including #gratitude, #happiness, and #blessed. The post was accompanied by a cake with the sparkly numbers on top.

(Instagram)
(Instagram)

David Furnish also posted a message praising his hitmaking husband's personal achievement. "Happy 25th Birthday Elton," he wrote along with a sobriety coin with 25 years imprinted on it. "You inspire me with your light and your love every day."

John, who has two sons with Furnish — Zachary, 4, and Elijah, 2 — has been candid about his drug and alcohol addictions, opening up on the topic in his 2012 memoir Love Is The Cure: On Life, Loss and the End of AIDS, saying he was "consumed by cocaine, booze, and who knows what else."

Elton's husband, David Furnish, posted a picture of a sobriety coin. (Instagram/Getty Images)
Elton's husband, David Furnish, posted a picture of a sobriety coin. (Instagram/Getty Images)

Elton, who has described himself as a "shy" kid, called himself "ignorant" and "naïve" about drugs during an interview to promote his book in 2012. He said he started using cocaine in the '70s with his manager, who brought it into the recording studio, and the drug gave him confidence when he was off stage.

"I always said cocaine was the drug that made me open up. I could talk to people," John told NPR that year. "But then it became the drug that closed me down, because the last two weeks of my use of cocaine I spent in a room in London, using it and not coming out for two weeks. And it completely shut me down. So, it started out by making me talk to everyone and then ended up by me isolating myself alone with it, which is the end of the world really."

John's turning point came when he met Ryan White, an Indiana teen who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion and died in 1990. The performer said it forced him to take a hard look at his own life and stop using cocaine and abusing alcohol.

Meeting Ryan White changed Elton's life in more ways than one. (Getty Images)
Meeting Ryan White changed Elton's life in more ways than one. (Getty Images)

"When I [met] Ryan, I knew that my life was out of whack," he said in the same interview. "I knew that I had to change. And after he died, I realized that I only had two choices: I was either going to die or I was going to live, and which one did I want to do? And then I said those words, 'I'll get help,' or, 'I need help. I'll get help.' And my life turned around. Ridiculous for a human being to take 16 years to say, 'I need help.'"

John said on the Today show in 2014 that he "wasted such a big part of my life" being "a drug addict and self-absorbed."

Yet the only person he points a finger at is himself. "I don't blame anybody or anything," he added. "It was just me being inquisitive... 'I'll join in. I'll be part of the gang.' Bad decision. If I could go back again, I would never do it."

Despite reaching 25 years of sobriety, it hasn't been easy for the star. "I still dream, twice a week at least, that I've taken cocaine and I have it up my nose. And it's very vivid and it's very upsetting, but at least it's a wake-up call," he said on NPR.

And it keeps him on his path. 25 years... and counting.