Lily Allen struggles to enjoy music now she's sober

Lily Allen struggles to enjoy music since giving up alcohol eight years ago.

The West End Girl singer, 41, has been sober for almost a decade after putting her party days behind her and she's admitted cleaning up had an impact on her enjoyment of concerts because she used to get drunk during live music events.

When asked to recall the last time she had alcohol, Lily told Perfect magazine: "At the Port Eliot Festival in, I guess, 2016? No! 2019? 2018? I’ve been sober eight years this year ... I don’t have much memory of it but I know it wasn’t good. That’s why I gave up alcohol ...

"It was a fun time but it’s in the past. There are other things I’d rather do for fun ...

"And that’s why I slightly feel that whipping-the-crowd-up-into-a-frenzy thing feels disingenuous to me, because I don’t receive music like that any more.

"It was such a big part of my life. It was about letting go, letting loose, being intoxicated. And I can’t do that any more. And I haven’t figured out a way to enjoy it without that stuff. And that’s fine.

"Even just singing along and dancing, I really associate all of that with alcohol. I do take the kids to quite a lot of concerts."

Lily went on to reveal she burst into tears during an Olivio Rodrigo show last year because it was the first time she'd felt "emotionally invested" in a gig as the songs were about heartbreak and she was still reeling after her split from husband David Harbour.

Lily said: "Probably the last concert I went to, I saw Olivia Rodrigo play the Governors Ball [in New York] last summer and that was quite a visceral experience for me. ... [It was] bad. I was bawling my eyes out ...

" It felt particularly close to home. But that was the first concert I’d been to in a long time where I’d felt emotionally invested and it didn’t include drugs and alcohol."

Lily previously admitted she's become addicted to "material things" since giving up drugs and alcohol - explaining she swapped one addiction for another and now uses shopping as an "escape" .

She told ELLE UK MAGAZINE: "[Addiction is] a need to escape myself. And to find something to help me with that ... Because myself is unbearable. Unbearable. And alcohol and drugs numb you to that. So does sex, food, spending money, conflict ...

"If I have an addiction, it’s to material things. I don’t believe that I am worthy of the things that I have in the world or money that I make, so a part of me tries to get rid of it.

"And designer goods are a really good way of doing that. I also feel titillated by the idea of running out of money. It drives me."