The long and winding road. Cheryl Burke has been vocal about her highs and lows while dealing with her sobriety, beginning in 2018 when she quit drinking.
The Dancing With the Stars pro revealed she was two years sober in September 2020, pointing to big life changes, including her engagement to Matthew Lawrence and her father’s death as the catalyst for change.
The same year, Burke was partnered with AJ McLean, whose own journey to sobriety has lasted nearly 20 years, on Dancing With the Stars. The Backstreet Boys musician opened up about his partner’s approach to getting clean in an exclusive blog for Us Weekly in October 2020.
“She is a very, very interesting human being. She has been through a lot in her life and has come out the other side gleaming,” he wrote. “Her sobriety is amazing to me, especially in this business that we’re both in, it’s difficult. It’s difficult to get sober, No. 1. It’s even more difficult to stay sober and hats off to her for staying sober for now over two years. I see her staying sober, hopefully, for the rest of her life. It’s a one day at a time thing, or as she says, one step at a time.”
Eight months later, Burke got real about her struggle with staying sober during an episode of her and McLean’s “Pretty Messed Up” podcast. She explained during the June 2021 episode that she’s felt like drinking “a lot lately.” The former Dancing With the Stars: Junior mentor told her cohost and their friend Rene Elizondo Jr. that she’s become “codependent” on the men and their openness.
“I look forward to these conversations of sobriety, of AJ talking about your ups and downs in life, if it’s been rough at times, and you Rene, being that voice of God,” she said. “For some reason, I was thinking, ‘What if this was all over one day?’ And I had so much anxiety.”
Burke noted that her “only real sober friends that are in [an AA] program,” admitting that she “starts to question” her commitment to sobriety when she’s not around them. She eventually asked Elizondo Jr. to be her sponsor, taking another step toward staying accountable for her actions. The dancer also explained why she chose to talk about her fears of relapsing on air, revealing, “I have to say it, otherwise I will drink.”
Scroll down to see everything Burke has said about her sobriety journey:
The professional dancer revealed in September 2020 that she is “two years” sober, cutting out alcohol in 2018 after getting engaged to the Boy Meets World alum. “It was just a decision that I made for myself,” she said on the “Lady Gang” podcast. “And it was when Matt and I got engaged and it was during that engagement party that we were just like — or that I was like, he didn’t even know — I was just like, I was done.”
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“My father passed away — and then my dad was an alcoholic — so either I was gonna crash and burn and check myself into rehab or I was gonna just quit cold turkey,” Burke told the “Lady Gang” cohosts in September 2020. “That’s just my personality. It’s either black or white.”
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The Dance Moms alum credited her husband, therapy and daily meditation as keys to her successfully staying sober over the years. “He is just my rock. I don’t know where I would be without him,” she said on Good Morning America in October 2020 of Lawrence. “When you make a decision, a big decision, a life-altering decision, your friends will change. And, you know, some people will support it. Some people won’t. And at the end of the day, you have to be OK with this.”
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The Dancing With the Stars pro reflected on a season 10 incident in 2010 as one of the bigger turning points for her addiction. “One season I danced with Chad ‘OchoCinco’ [Johnson]. There was something in my head and I had never experienced it before,” she recalled during an October 2020 episode of her “Pretty Messed Up” podcast. “I wasn’t drunk, I wasn’t hungover, but it was still when I was drinking. I remember messing up on my choreography. It was this crazy voice in my head saying, ‘Go the other way, go the other way.’ I butchered my routine when I’m supposed to be there for the celebrity.”
Following that “traumatic” experience, Burke revealed that she “drank way more” because she was “scared of that voice” in her head. “I was self-sabotaging and from then on, I felt like my career plummeted down,” she explained. “I would have to drink before I saw anybody. I would never start [drinking] with everybody — I would start by myself at home.”
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The California native has spoken about her Dancing With the Stars partnership with McLean on multiple occasions, including how their bond has helped her through her sober journey. “We’re definitely both addicts and just trying to be the best version of ourselves we can be,” she admitted during a November 2020 show package, turning to the boy bander.
Two months prior, Burke exclusively told Us that the pair’s rehearsals often turn into “therapy talks” in the ballroom. “I always believe that people come into your lives because it’s either a reflection of who you are or who you want to be or who you’re trying not to be,” she said at the time. “But there’s always this reason. There’s a reason for this energy and energy coming together. … AJ is just a reflection of who I am at times, which is someone who tries to control the situation. I’m seeing him and I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is what I do!'”
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“I don’t think I ever drank socially,” Burke told her “Pretty Messed Up” podcast cohosts during a December 2020 episode. “I drank for a reaction, which was to numb myself and to be more social. It was never just to have one cocktail. I don’t think I’ve ever had that. It was every day for me. When people drink waters, that was my vodka sodas, actually.”
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The dance teacher opened up in June 2021 about a recent shake in her confidence when it came to staying sober, telling her podcast listeners that while on vacation with Lawrence in Hawaii she almost drank. She explained that room service sent a bottle of champagne up to the couple’s room because they didn’t know she didn’t drink and after her husband took a few sips, she admitted, “never have I ever been triggered in the last two and a half years until that day.”
Burke revealed that the “same thing” happened when she went to friend’s birthday. She noted that she even told her sister at the time, “I’m two seconds away [from drinking].” The DWTS pro explained that she “can’t just have one” drink and “might as well just go into this rabbit hole for a couple of weeks,” where no one will find her. She added: “I have a lot of personal stuff going on right now at the moment, and so it’s been very … I feel like I’m walking on a really tight rope at the moment. Therapy’s not working right now.”
Courtesy of Cheryl Burke/Instagramfrom Celebrity News – Us Weekly https://ift.tt/3A94AlX
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