Lena Dunham reveals drug addiction, sobriety
Kanye West in the Oval Office of the White House in Emboldened by the safe space she found on Dax Shepard’s podcast, Lena Dunham made a big reveal on Monday: She’s six months sober after a years-long addiction to benzodiazepines. “There was a solid three years where I was, to put it lightly, misusing benzos,” Dunham said on Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast Monday, “even though it was all, quote-unquote, doctor prescribed and I had convinced someone to tell me that this is the way.”
Dunham, who’s been dealing with anxiety since childhood, called benzodiazepines the biggest epidemic nobody’s talking about. She quoted her mother, who said she didn’t need to be a hero about things. With medication, there was no reason to ever suffer, her mom said.
However, she said, “I really took that to heart, and when I was having crazy anxiety, and having to show up for things that I didn’t feel equipped to show up for, I was like, there’s no reason for me to ever suffer.”
“I was taking Klonopin, and at that point it wasn’t making it better,” she said, “but I just thought, if I don’t take this, how much worse will it get?”
Shepard, who’s been sober himself for years, empathised. “It quiets the monster upstairs enough that you can be your best self,” he said.