Full House child star who began acting at 5 realised she was an alcoholic at 14
A child star who starred in one of America’s most popular ever sitcoms has spoken out about her battle with addiction, stating that she was at one point spending $1000s a week on drugs.
Full House ran for eight seasons between 1987 and 1995, later becoming one of the most widely syndicated TV shows of all time. It spawned the careers of multiple celebrities, with the Olsen twins becoming famous off their role as infant twins in the show and both Bob Saget and John Stamos solidifying their celebrity status on the series.
Jodie Sweetin may not have become a household celebrity name like the Olsen twins, but she was arguably one of the biggest stars on the show as Stephanie Tanner, the goody-two-shoes middle child of the family.
Sweetin was just five years old when the show began, finishing the series as a 13-year-old and household name. She would later return for the show’s Netflix sequel series Fuller House to reprise the role, but in the years in between she became addicted to drugs and realised she was an alcoholic within just a year of the show finishing.
Sweetin began drinking at 14 and realised quickly she was an alcoholic
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Appearing on Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, Sweetin spoke about realising that she was an alcoholic at a young age, stating that people in her family are alcoholics and that it was ‘genetic’.
She said: “I always knew [alcoholism] was there. And because I also knew that alcoholism and all this stuff ran in my family, I knew from the time I was like 14 or 15, I was like, ‘Oh, I'm an alcoholic.’
“Like I knew it, but now suddenly I was like, ‘oh okay, all of this stuff was now in my brain and it becomes a lot harder to deal with to deal with.’” She clarified that, whilst she started drinking at 14, she did not drink on the set of the show and only did so when it came to a conclusion.
Sweetin stated that in her early 20s she was taking ‘something’ every day, and added that at her house she had a bowl which visitors would dump whatever pills they had into, and would proceed to take whichever she pulled from it.
Whilst she entered rehab in 2005 she would later relapse, admitting that for a period she was still taking drugs despite publicly saying she was sober.
Sweetin burst into tears at a speech about how she was ‘sober’ whilst in the midst of a comedown, but had some heartwarming words about addiction and relapsing
The child star has previously opened up about a sad incident addressing a crowd at Wisconsin's Marquette University during a period where she was publicly sober but privately still taking drugs and ‘getting loaded’.
She was in the midst of a come down from a two day binge involving meth, cocaine and ecstasy.
She explained in her book, unSweetined: "I talked about growing up on television and about how great my life was now that I was sober, and then midspeech I started to cry.
“The crowd probably thought that the memories of hitting rock bottom were too much for me to handle. Or maybe they thought the tears were just a way for an actor to send a message that drugs are bad. I don't know what they thought.
“I know what they didn't think. They didn't think I was coming down from a two-day bender of coke, meth, and ecstasy and they didn't think that I was lying to them with every sentence that came out of my mouth.”
In the new interview with Michael Rosenbaum she stated that she is long-sober and that drinking and drugs no longer appeal to her, and had some heartwarming words regarding relapsing.
She said: “Too often we back ourselves into a corner and think that everyone else will judge our mistakes so harshly that we're not even worth a second or third or tenth or fifteenth chance. But really, you are. And if you're thinking it, you can you can make a change. You can do something if you're aware of it.”
In addition to having returned to acting for Fuller House, Sweetin also now works as an activist, podcaster, and completed a degree as a drug and alcohol counsellor.
Topics: Mental Health, TV and Film, Celebrity, Drugs, Alcohol
Michael Slavin