National Recovery Month: How Jada Pinkett Smith went 'cold turkey' and has been sober for 23 years
Before everything else, Jada Pinkett Smith was caught up in an entanglement with alcohol. Addiction to drinks ran in her family and she couldn't acknowledge the issue at that point in time and it resulted in her never turning down a drink. After a point, Jada found herself drinking significantly every night and often doing it while she was alone. That is when she knew she had a problem and decided to seek help to get rid of her dependency on alcohol and as of 2020, she has been sober for 23 years. September is National Recovery Month, a national observance that celebrates the gains of recovering addicts and it was only fitting that we honor her journey in this column.
Jada was born to a very young mother with who she lived in Baltimore amidst the Crack-Cocaine epidemic and it wasn't long before her mother started using drugs and alcohol, she told ABC in a past interview. "I grew up in a drug-infested neighborhood where you walk out each day and you just hope that you make it. I came from a war zone… There was a possibility that I wouldn’t make it past 21— that was the reality." In an interview with Contact Music website, she also opened up about how much alcohol she was consuming on a nightly basis, often in the company of no one but herself. "I found myself drinking two bottles of wine on the couch and I said, ‘Jada, I think we’ve got a problem here.’ I had problems with alcohol and I really had to get in contact with the pain, whatever that is, and then I had to get some other tools in how to deal with the pain. From that day on I went cold turkey…”
She opened up about what recovery truly should mean, in a letter that she wrote to a friend, that was posted to her Facebook page. “I’ve learned that recovery isn’t just for those suffering from substance abuse, but that recovery is about recovering from our traumas, abuse, neglect, abandonment, lack of self-worth, disappointments, failed relationships, the loss of loved ones and so on," she wrote. Jada has a real understanding of addiction and recovery through her tryst with addiction and she doesn't let it affect her present. “Alcoholism and drug addiction runs through my family, and I’ve had my own addictions that I’ve had to get over. It just made me realize that really great people just get caught up,” she said in an episode of 'Red Table Talk' in 2018.
September 2020 marks the 31st year of National Recovery Month and with this column, we aim to tell the share the experiences of public figures and celebrities with mental disorders, with an aim to raise awareness and normalize asking for help