This story contains discussion of substance abuse.
Over the past year, Hayden Panettiere has been very honest about her past struggles with substance abuse.
In July of last year, she opened up about being out of the public eye for years while she dealt with alcohol and opioid addiction — and last week, she got real about her struggle with self-medication while dealing with postpartum depression.
In a new interview with the New York Times, Hayden opened up more about her past alcohol abuse and what led to her sobriety.
In the interview, the actor explained that her substance abuse issues were often exacerbated by the content of the scripts she was receiving.
“When I went home after acting out what I was really going through, the last thing I wanted to do was properly manage or talk about what I was feeling in a healthy way,” Hayden said. “So I turned to unhealthy coping mechanisms.”
At one point, doctors told Hayden that she was experiencing liver failure. "My eyes were yellow," she said, adding that she would "wake up shaking, needing an entire bottle of alcohol to get through the day."
Hayden has since been sober for almost two years, and she told the NYT that she deleted all her photos from her phone from when she was dealing with addiction — but she chose to keep one "to remind myself what I looked like."
"The fact that I thought I looked OK at that time is the scariest part to me.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, you can call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) and find more resources here.
