Alice Cooper Says He’s Been Sober Since 1983 — How Vincent Furnier Survived the Character He Created

Alice Cooper is sober, and he says he has been since 1983. The timing matters because a new CBS interview aired on October 3, 2026, just days before his memoir Devil on My Shoulder is released. In the extended conversation, Cooper returns to the question that has followed him for decades: where did Vincent Furnier end and Alice Cooper begin?

That question is not just theatrical. In recent interviews promoting the book, Cooper has again described years of alcohol and drug use, including crack cocaine, and said addiction nearly cost him his life and his marriage. He has spoken publicly about entering treatment twice and about finally getting sober in 1983.

Why Alice Cooper is talking about sobriety again now

The immediate reason is the memoir. Cooper says he wrote it partly to untangle the mythology around the character he created in the late 1960s and the private person who had to live behind it. CBS aired a shorter segment on October 2 and a 36-minute extended interview on October 3, putting that identity split back at the center of the story.

The official description of Devil on My Shoulder makes the contrast explicit: the sober, deeply religious man behind the mask versus the shock-rock character with the snake, guillotine and horror-show reputation. Cooper has said that at one point those two versions of himself became dangerously intertwined.

What happened with alcohol, crack cocaine and rehab?

Cooper has described alcohol as the earlier problem. He has said he entered rehab in 1976 after his drinking became physically dangerous. Years later, he began using cocaine and then crack cocaine, which he has described as the drug that came closest to killing him.

Recent coverage of the memoir also revisits the role of his wife, Sheryl Goddard. Cooper has said that after another period of heavy drug use, she made clear that their marriage could not continue unless he changed. He entered treatment again and has said he has remained sober since 1983.

None of this is a brand-new confession. That is actually one of the more interesting reactions online: several Reddit commenters pointed out that Cooper has talked about his addiction history for years. They are right. The new part is not that Alice Cooper once had a drug problem. The new part is how deliberately he is tying addiction to the character he created and to the loss of his own sense of identity.

Vincent Furnier versus Alice Cooper

Cooper was born Vincent Damon Furnier. Alice Cooper began as the name of the band and then became the theatrical persona he performed onstage. Eventually, Furnier legally changed his name to Alice Cooper.

In his recent interviews, he has described a period when the distinction stopped feeling clear. The public expected excess, danger and transgression from Alice Cooper, and Cooper has reflected on how easy it was for the man behind the character to start living inside that mythology.

That is the part of the story I keep coming back to. Recovery is often described as giving something up. Sometimes the harder work is deciding what you are allowed to keep.

Cooper did not become a quiet, unrecognizable version of himself when he got sober. The makeup stayed. The snakes stayed. The stage violence stayed theatrical. What changed was that he stopped requiring the private man to live like the character twenty-four hours a day.

For anyone who has ever wondered whether sobriety means losing the version of yourself that other people know, What Does It Mean to Be Sober? goes deeper into recovery identity and the language people choose for themselves.

What Alice Cooper's story raises about recovery and identity

There is an easy version of this story where the lesson is simply that drugs are bad and sobriety saved him. That is true at a very broad level, but it misses the more human question.

What happens when the thing that is hurting you is tangled up with the thing that made you interesting, successful, funny, fearless or recognizable?

You may not have a shock-rock alter ego. You may still know the feeling. Some people build an identity around being the wild one, the one who can handle anything, the one who never says no, the one who keeps the party going, or the one everyone expects to be a certain way.

Changing can feel less like quitting a substance and more like betraying a character you spent years creating.

Cooper's long sobriety offers a useful counterpoint: the character can survive without the chaos. The creativity can stay. The humor can stay. Even the darkness can stay onstage. You do not necessarily have to erase yourself to stop destroying yourself.

Go Deeper

Sources

CBS Mornings — Extended interview with Alice Cooper, October 3, 2026

Alice Cooper official site — Devil on My Shoulder memoir announcement

Louder — recent interview coverage of Cooper's addiction history and sobriety

Wikimedia Commons — featured photo by Stefan Bollmann