ABC News(NEW YORK) — Professional golfer Billy Horschel and his wife, Brittany Horschel, opened up about her battle with alcoholism in a joint interview with ABC News’ Good Morning America Wednesday.
The 30-year-old golfer won his fourth Professional Golfers’ Association title last month at the AT&T Byron Nelson Tournament, where for the first time he briefly opened up about a private struggle he and his family have dealt with over the past year.
“I’m not able to talk about it right now, but it’s just a lot of stuff happened in the last year, and this is just, this is nice,” Billy Horschel told reporters in a news conference following his win.
Brittany Horschel later turned to Twitter to explain her husband’s emotional reaction, revealing publicly that she sought treatment last year for alcoholism.
“‘I am an alcoholic,'” Brittany Horschel wrote in a statement. “I say that now without shame.”
i would like to share why yesterday's win had some extra emotions for my hubby, @BillyHo_Golf xo pic.twitter.com/2yDyhm8kRR
— brittany horschel (@britt_horschel) May 22, 2017
She went on to say that her husband took care of their 18-month-old daughter Skylar when she checked herself into a treatment facility for two months.
“With him winning at my one-year mark, it was the perfect time for me to tell everybody that I’m an alcoholic and I’m proud of being an alcoholic and how far I’ve come,” Brittany Horschel said live on GMA. “Not everybody’s comfortable with [going] public and I am, so I feel like I have almost a sense of duty to share my story to help others.”
On Wednesday morning, Brittany Horschel revealed that she would fill water bottles with vodka for many years to hide her addiction.
“He knew that I’d drink a couple of glasses of wine at night, but other than that I really kept it hidden from friends and family and especially Billy,” she said. “I would wake up and I would have some sort of drink. Most likely it was mixing vodka with orange juice and then just slowly keep on drinking throughout the day.”
As for the Horschels’ daughter, “I was able to take care of her, but it wasn’t at any energy level. It was sad for her because the quality of her life was suffering because of how my life was,” she added.
Billy Horschel said he had begun to realize that his wife had a serious problem that required help.
“It probably wasn’t until after Skyler was born, probably 6, 8 months, she started drinking again and into 2015, beginning of 2016, I realized there was a really big issue here,” Billy Horschel said. “We would have conversations about her drinking. I would say, ‘Hey, how about we just stop drinking for a couple weeks. Maybe only drink wine.’ But obviously, I knew it was a bigger situation than that.”
While Brittany Horschel was in treatment, the couple reversed roles.
“That was the hard part, leaving Skyler,” Brittany Horschel. “I was very hesitant at first, but soon realized that it was the best thing for her. It was the best gift I ever gave her.”
“It was tough,” Billy Horschel added. “She was an alcoholic, she had issues drinking but our relationship together as a husband-wife was not great. We needed to work on that … so for me to be more open, communicate better with my wife and our relationship was a massive thing that we learned how to do.”
Brittany Horschel has been sober for a year.
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