Matty Healy kicked his drug addiction through horse therapy.
The 1975 frontman has revealed that he completed what is called equine therapy, where the patient carries out activities with a four-legged mammal to improve mental health, and though he was "cynical" about the idea at first it worked wonders for his mind.
In an interview with NME.com, he explained: "One of my therapists there asked did I want to do equine therapy.
"And I thought, because I’m a very cynical English person who doesn’t believe in energy and vibes and is a sceptic at heart, I thought, f***ing hell, what am I going to do? Stand next to a horse for two weeks?
"So I’m stood there, and the first day, to be honest, I am stood next to a horse, and I’m thinking, ‘What a f***ing d***head I am, stood with a horse thinking that I’m going to have a profound moment’.
"Then three days in, my therapist takes me into this round pen and tells me, ‘Breathe,’ shows me this thing where I’m spinning a rope near the horse, and he basically teaches me how to get the horse to trust me in about five minutes.
"And when it happened, and the horse came up to me and put his thing next to me, and he was just with me for the whole day, feeling safer with me than not, it was the most profound experience I’ve ever had, because I just got it.
"In that time, and probably if I went back now, I cared a million times more in a human way about the approval of that horse than I did anybody else."
The ‘Ugh’ singer – who has been open about his heroin addiction – came to find that the horse had a lot of compassion for him and was "understanding" of his "fragility", and even started to "envy" the "human qualities" the animal had that he doesn’t think he posses.
He recalled: "I thought, hold on, this thing wants to be with me.
"He has the ability to destroy whatever he wants and the desire to hurt nothing.
"He’s so strong, so independent, so graceful, so elegant, so generous with his time, so understanding of my fragility … there were so many human qualities that I envied in this horse.
"I’m not as good with other people as he is; I’m not as strong as he is, I’m not as forgiving as he is, I’m not as elegant as he is."
He joked: "And he had great hair. I mean, you can get a mangy horse, but Favor was good looking."
The experience had such a profound effect on the 29-year-old singer that he considered moving to the country and getting his own equine friend.
He said: "Oh man. I was on a massive horse kick when I got back, I was like, ‘I’m moving to the country! I’m getting a horse!’ Then our manager was like, ‘You’ve got an interview,’ and I was like, ‘OK. Maybe later."
Matty Healy kicked drug habit through horse therapy
