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I was going to lose it all. It was like, "If I don't choose this moment to do the right thing and do something that's going to give me life, all of the things I'm scared of losing, I'm going to lose anyway." I knew very well right then that this is actually going to be the best, strongest road to get me back to the two things I love, which are my home life and my career, and finding the balance in those two. I need them both. I've got to play [music] and I need to be a husband. I love it. I want to drive my wife to work, and I get to do that now when I go to Australia on these breaks, I get to drive her to work. I get to pick her up and, when I can, spend time on the set and just be there. That thrills me like you have no idea.
Both you and Nicole have said it made your marriage stronger.
Oh God, yeah. Some of these things happen in marriages many, many years into it, and you work through them. It's like moving into a house, and the house burns down; we get to build a new one together. Not one that's mine; it's ours, we built it together. We know every part of [our relationship] because we've built it. Just the two of us. It's beautiful…. Nicole listened to her heart and did what she felt was the right thing to do. To see that kind of love in action, that's very moving and deeply inspiring and just makes me want to be a better man.
When did you first realize you had a problem with alcohol and drugs?
It was a slow process. [After I first got to Nashville in 1992] it was how I dealt with a lot of loneliness. I wasn't used to rejection. I wasn't used to loneliness. It just seemed like nothing [my band and I] did was connecting or happening and it was very frustrating. People in Australia, they would just go, "You suck." Literally, they'd just go, "Yeah that song you did was fantastic. That one? Piece of s---. Don't ever do that one." So honest. I can deal with that. When I got here and everybody's like, "Oh we love everything! And that's a great song!" I'm like, "Great! We're on a roll then! Any day we'll be happening." So why didn't it happen? I was so confused. . . . It was my diversion, my way of numbing myself to the rejection and the loneliness and the confusion.
JOSH & FERGIE: ROCKED BY SCANDAL
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