As Danny O’Donoghue was writing The Script’s new album, he says there was always the presence of his bandmate and best friend Mark Sheehan in the room. It’s three years since Sheehan died in an American hospital after a short illness but the pain O’Donoghue feels at his loss is still evident today. Although he insists that these days, the way he handles grief is different.The User’s Guide to Being Human, released yesterday, is the first album where O’Donoghue has been without Sheehan by his side. It’s also the first one that he’s made after stepping away from alcohol.‘Obviously Mark isn’t here but every single person in that room had an imaginary Mark on their shoulders telling them when they were getting stuff wrong – never when you are doing something right,’ Danny says, laughing. ‘So I picked up Mark’s guitar which is this beautiful red humming bird and really fiery as well, just like his personality and I felt really close to him on this album.’Sheehan and O’Donoghue were friends from the age of 12, brothers from another mother who helped each other through difficult times, the loss of their parents, heartbreak and frustration as they tried to rise through the ranks of the music industry. They climbed that ladder of success together — from their days in the boyband MyTown to scratching a living in LA as songwriters to the meteoric rise of The Script.Today O’Donoghue admits that he freely embraced the rock and roll lifestyle that came with success as alcohol, he says, gave him the freedom at that time to express his feelings and tap into the emotions he needed to write.But overwhelmed with grief at Mark’s death, the singer finally realised that something needed to change.‘I feel better now, 100 per cent,’ he tells me. ‘Not to dog on people who actually drink, but you’re poisoning yourself. It’s not good to drink alcohol. ‘I know the ads would like you to think differently but I gave up alcohol, cigarettes and caffeine all in the one day. And I feel so much better for it. I am here, I’m present. I’m not just present for me, I’m present for my wife. ‘I’m present for my emotions and present to grieve properly because if you’re trying to grieve and using alcohol and facing grief, you’re just pushing it and kicking it down the road.‘Everybody goes through hard times and people pass away. This is just part of life that you have to get used to. ‘But if you don’t, it’ll slowly kill you and I think the reason why I went to songs in the first place was because of therapy. I had feelings in myself that words couldn’t describe. ‘It had to come out some way and music sounded like that’s what I feel like. And as opposed to sometimes punching somebody can feel like that’s what I feel like,’ he says of his new-found love of the sport of boxing.‘It’s the same pot and same cauldron. But I feel it’s like letting out a little bit of air out of a tyre before they burst.‘So yeah, giving up alcohol was probably one of the best things I’ve ever done. Well, sorry, getting married was the best thing I’ve ever done. Giving up alcohol is the second best thing.’ The Script as they were: Glen Power, Danny O’Donoghue and Mark SheehanWhile Danny admits his drinking habits were problematic, alcohol was a symptom rather than the problem itself.‘I wouldn’t say I was an addict in the strong terms, but I would definitely say in the loose terms. There are a lot of people who’ve got their badges, you know what I’m saying? I just joined the club. I signed up and saw the flyer and I walked in and had a few meetings. That was it.‘Alcohol was just a symptom. It wasn’t the cause. It was a symptom of things I was going through. I’d always had the pain. I’d always had the emotion. ‘I always had things I wanted to describe — from childhood, family stuff, all that kind of stuff and trying to make sense of that. ‘Alcohol originally gave me the power to be able to speak about it because normally it was so paralysing I couldn’t.‘So doing drugs, drinking was a great way for you to then not give a s**t and say whatever you wanted. ‘But then you do that enough, you then start to think that “oh, that’s part of me, and this is part of me” so you try and give up alcohol or cigarettes and you think you’re giving up a part of your own self.’O’Donoghue has always insisted he never did hard drugs of any kind but revealed in the past he had smoked weed.‘I feel it was necessary for me at the time because there was nothing else that I had that enabled me to do that,’ he says of releasing his emotions. ‘I used to think that I couldn’t write songs if I wasn’t after having a smoke or if I wasn’t drunk. But it’s all bulls**t. It’s stuff the addict in you tells yourself so that you don’t stop.‘When you can’t control yourself emotionally and then you drink, alcohol is a gateway to absolutely everything. Every bad decision I’ve ever made has started off with “Let’s go for one.”’But Danny’s working life wasn’t affected and he says he didn’t drink every day either, more used alcohol as a crutch.‘I wasn’t an everyday drinker and I also didn’t use it to mask how my everyday life was,’ Danny says. ‘It was more, that if there were things going on in my life, if something bad was happening, I would use alcohol as a crutch to let off a bit of stress or to shield me from what was happening.‘I was a very high functioning alcoholic. But when I drank, most of my life outside of work would be trying to just make it back to work again.’He’d have a few days off and would party hard. ‘I could drink Friday, then just get wrecked Saturday and then try and sleep it all off until Sunday,’ he says. ‘I’d spend a lot of time in the studio. So I was very productive. But like I said, there were no guardrails. I don’t have a boss. I am my own boss so I’d let myself away with absolute murder.’Sitting in the Sugar Club where he has been introducing the album to journalists, O’Donoghue is showing off a series of videos – mini dramas if you like – where he stars as a pub barman in a bar called Sheehans with a little storyline showing different people sheltering from a storm.At 46 he looks every inch the rock star. Tall and handsome, he has a presence that commands a room but far from being standoffish, he’s warm and welcoming.O’Donoghue craves that sense of community, he wants us to know that we are all in this together. And he’s still as passionate as he ever was but now he knows how to deal with those emotions.‘The thing about drinking and doing drugs is that you know what it was like to have fake confidence because that’s what alcohol gave you and drugs give you — really fake confidence. ‘So I remember what that’s like to have that confidence. And by not drinking, it’s amazing because I have this jacket that fits now.’He has the confidence to express himself and when he listens to the older songs he knows that younger Danny needed alcohol to speak his truth in some of those lyrics.Now things are different.‘Now I know the mechanism is to be truthful,’ he says of songwriting. ‘You don’t need alcohol to be truthful. Now the truth actually comes quicker and it comes sooner. ‘You go to the well and it’s there immediately. You don’t have to sit around for six or seven hours to wait until you’re having an emotional moment with somebody, then the truth comes out. You just know to go straight to the well for the water.’Therapy has released him from the chains of alcohol and has empowered him to take more control of his life and his work.‘I’m a lot more honest, so I’m a lot more on everybody’s ass about stuff,’ he says. ‘I’m just clearer than I was before because instead of letting other people do some of the work for you, I want to look in the white of people’s eyes. ‘I want to do the interviews, all that stuff. So I’m definitely a lot more present and a lot more focussed.’The User’s Guide To Being Human has been inspired by the world we are living today, how technology is interfering with the art of human connection and O’Donoghue’s insistence that real and solid connection with each other in the world is what makes it go round.Getting married to his long-term partner, events manager Anais Naing, last year changed things for him too, making life more solid. He says he has faith now in love thanks to Anais, after having his heart broken on numerous occasions. For the first time, he says, there’s no reason to think now that this love isn’t going to last forever. Danny O’Donoghue and his wife Anais‘Marriage and commitment closes all those doors and it leaves you with one and there’s two people walking through that door. ‘So all the options, all the what ifs are just completely gone. And then you can focus on the fact that there’s two people who are really one. Me and my missus we’re a unit and then you can start planning for the future. ‘And once you have that there’s like a natural order to that of just having the person you’re supposed to be with just the two of you and then planning for your future planning for kids. ‘Where you’re going live, where you’re going to spend your life — all these things just feel so natural and so calming to a chaotic mind.‘It’s a different zone to “oh, we’ve been dating two years”. The commitment of it is in God’s eyes, that’s the main thing. Obviously, the government gets in there too, somewhere along the way,’ he says, laughing.The songs on the new album embrace that need for connection, embrace the need to put down the phones and interact with others. It’s a thread that has always run through the music of The Script and it’s one of the reasons why they are Ireland’s biggest exports from those days of The Man Who Can’t Be Moved when it was released 18 years ago.‘We’re struggling with different things now, but I’m only writing for my own age group,’ Danny says. ‘I try to write what’s relevant to me and how I feel. There are millions of people who are growing up with me and I’m trying to speak about me and then people will say “I feel exactly the same”. Which is another way of knowing we are all the same on the inside.’The third member of The Script originally, Glen Power, is missing from this album and of his absence O’Donoghue will only say this.‘He’s stepped away for the minute, so we’re still working through things right now and how that’s going to look in the future,’ he says. ‘But for the minute, we were engaged with different musicians for this album. So we’ll continue in turn and promote and as it is until things get sorted out.’O’Donoghue has recently been to the Dail campaigning for copyright rules against AI scraping. He is successful enough for this not to be a concern to him but he worries about smaller artists, he worries that creativity here will be destroyed by machines and that one of the joyful things that sets Ireland apart culturally will be ended by technology.‘I’d love to campaign for us to play at least 60 per cent homegrown Irish music on our own radio stations for the same reason,’ he says. ‘Why are we giving all these spots in music away to other artists? We are just haemorrhaging money everywhere. And not putting that money back into where it’s needed the most in Ireland. ‘And we do have such talent here as well, we’ve so many brilliant people. In France, it’s mandatory for them to play I think it’s 60 to 70 per cent homegrown French music on the radio. ‘Their hip hop scene is booming. Their live scene is booming because people are getting to know the songs on the radio. If you put it in front of people, people will listen to it.’And that is at the heart of The User’s Guide To Being Human. It’s a scary time, O’Donoghue says, as app creators have got into the addict’s mindset, offering dopamine hits through the tiny tiles on your phone.‘They ‘re very talented and gifted at crafting these apps that take away your attention,’ he says before asking me what were the last three videos I watched on Instagram to which I answer that I can’t remember.‘That that has to be frightening to you,’ he says. ‘It’s frightening to me because I remember the last three things I talked about with my wife. ‘So get off that phone and start talking to people because you’ll remember it. It’s a more lived experience. Otherwise life is passing by you so fast, you know?’The User’s Guide To Being Human is out now. The Script play Dublin’s 3Arena on October 30 and 31, tickets are on sale from ticketmaster.ie