Soon, AJ McLean will commemorate a significant milestone: two years clean from alcohol.
At the iHeartRadio Festival in Las Vegas on Saturday, the 45-year-old singer of Backstreet Boys spoke exclusively to PEOPLE. He shared that although life is "grand," he is still working on his sobriety.
He tells PEOPLE that he will be sober for two years this coming Tuesday, so life is great right now."
According to McLean, it's all in the mind. He really needs to make it a daily ritual, regardless of whether he is attending meetings or not.
Following the conclusion of the Backstreet Boys' DNA World Tour in May, McLean claims he even took advantage of his break to attend ten weeks in an intensive outpatient mental health program in Arizona.
"I said, 'You know what? I know I have a window of time. I have some introspection to conduct. Sobriety is a good thing. I have to go back and investigate further. I am really appreciative that I have ten weeks left to live," he tells PEOPLE. "It was well worth the effort."
While the city was "not good" for him during those years, McLean, who performed in a residency at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas from 2017 to 2019, along with his Backstreet Boys bandmates Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Kevin Richardson, and Brian Littrell, said he would now "love" for the group to perform there again.
"It's not even about geography. Addiction goes anywhere you go, so I can't blame it on a city. Yes, it's Sin City but that's some BS," he says. "I was [drinking] in podunk wherever. But again, now I play the tape out. That's my whole theory. I play out the tape."
He also said that, "I know how it's going to end if I pick up a drink. Now, with the Fentanyl crisis, I've lost 12 friends in the last two years. It's terrifying. It's scary out there. You don't know what's out there. So just don't walk through the door, just stay on this side of the door."
Regarding the new album, he states, "It's a little bit of everything that I am a fan of," he says of the new album. "It's funk, it's R&B, it's pop, it's soul. There's kind of an '80s flare. There's some Silk Sonic vibes. It's some really good stuff."
"There's probably going to be about 18 songs roughly on the album, so I'm probably going to split the album into two parts. So hopefully January is part one and part two probably end of April. I got about two more songs to finish and then it is going to be done," he added.
Last month, the musician talked candidly to PEOPLE about his recovery and his hosting of 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at his house. At the time, McLean stated that he is trying to keep his feet firmly planted in the program.
He came clean about suffering from low self-worth his whole life, and he has picked up a lot of knowledge. He added that his sobriety is at its strongest point to date.
He added that he is in the best physical, mental, and spiritual health of his life.
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