By Hayden Wright

Ed Sheeran recently appeared on the U.K.’s Jonathan Ross Show (via People) where and the singer opened up about how temptations on tour caused his relationship with substances to escalate. It was a situation that contributed to the singer’s decision to take a year off from music in December of 2015.

Related: Ed Sheeran Cancels Seven Tour Dates After Fracturing Wrist and Elbow

“I think you need to, when you get into the industry, adjust to it — and I didn’t adjust because I was constantly working on tour,” he said. “And all the pitfalls that people read about, I just found myself slipping into all of them. Mostly, like, substance abuse. I never touched anything. I started slipping into it, and that’s why I took a year off and buggered off.”

Sheeran says working on new music helped keep him on the straight and narrow.

“I focused on work, and I can’t work under the influence, I can’t write songs under the influence, I can’t perform under the influence — so the more I worked the less [that happened]. I’ve worked my whole life to get to where I am and you can’t lose that over something that you do in your spare time,” he said.

The singer also credited his current girlfriend Cherry Seaborn for keeping him in a good place.

“We live together now, and I think that was a real help grounding me,” he said. “I was a 25-year-old in the music industry on tour so I just needed someone to balance me out.”