Guitarist Zakk Wylde says that he’s pretty much the same outrageous guy he’s always been (of course if he wasn’t, he’d probably have to change his name to Zakk Mylde), only now he’s doing it sober. In a new interview, he opens up about his drinking and what it took to quit.

Promoting his book, ‘Bringing Metal to the Children,’ Wylde told Guitar International that giving up the bottle was all about growing up. “If you wanna quit smoking, just f—ing stop. If you wanna stop drinking, just f—ing stop. It’s that f—ing easy! You just grow up and out of it. Hey, we don’t throw rocks at cars anymore either. Enough is enough.”

The guitarist says that, despite drinking “$500 to $700 a day,” it rarely affected his performance. “[E]ven during the ‘Animal House’ years when we were all drinking heavily, everybody always answered the bell when the time came,” he continued. “There was a couple times at towards the end of my drinking that I maybe had one too many. I was never smashed on stage. I did notice it creeping into the BLS shows and when I was with Ozzy. After 20 year of playing with him I’m sure he knew a few times. When it starts getting in the way of things then you have to put a lid on it.”

Wylde is currently on the road as the Ozzy Osbourne & Friends Tour makes its way through Europe. The tour concludes July 1 in Athens, Greece.

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