Stephen Stills Says He Has His ‘Original Personality Back’ Three Years After Getting Sober at 77

Rocker Stephen Stills is three years sober — and never better.

The Grammy winner, 80, rose to fame as a member of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills and Nash in the 1960s, a time when rock and roll was all but synonymous with heavy drug and alcohol use.

Decades later, Stills hasn’t touched substances in three years, and told Rolling Stone in a new interview that he’s rediscovered himself in the process.

“I’m really comfortable in sobriety. It gets me back to the kid I was before this madness started, pretty affable and friendly,” he said. “Things were so special at the beginning of my career before I sold a single record. But when you add poison into that mix… I’m just glad I have my original personality back.”

While Stills has not spoken publicly about struggles with drugs and alcohol, his former bandmates Graham Nash and the late David Crosby have been vocal about their addiction issues both in the band and in later years.

“When we first started there were no egos. I think that came from all the cocaine we snorted. That’s what brought egos into it. There were an enormous amount of drugs being taken,” Nash told the Guardian in 2022. “I’d get high in the morning and snort in the afternoon and I’d keep going till 3-4 a.m… We may have been able to make more music if we’d not been quite so stoned.”

Nash has said he took cocaine for the last time in 1984, while Crosby turned his life around after a 1985 stint in jail on drug charges. He died in 2023 at age 81.

Crosby, Stills and Nash— which also achieved success as the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young iteration with Neil Young — released its final studio album, Looking Forward, in 1999, and officially split as a band in 2016.

Stills has stayed busy in the years since, and released a joint album with ex Judy Collins, who inspired the hit “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” in 2017. He retired from touring after the two hit the road together in 2018, but has continued to play select gigs.

In January, Stills and Nash reunited to sing “Teach Your Children” at the FireAid benefit concert in Los Angeles, and he also performed Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” with Dawes and Mike Campbell.

“It felt like putting on an old shoe again,” Stills told Rolling Stone of performing with Nash. “We just fell into it, and there it was. And the pleasure of playing with those kids made it even more special. I don’t see [Nash] a lot since he lives on the East Coast, but it was great to see my old pal.”

The star also revealed that he’s currently working on a memoir, and “going one word at a time.”

“I’m puttering with the book,” he said. “I’ve found that the more things change, the more things stay the same. And I must say, it’s a lot easier doing this now that I’m sober.”