'I’ll put my money on sober women any day.' Lena Dunham speaks out about her addiction struggles.

Lena Dunham’s show Girls skyrocketed the writer and actress to success in 2012 and left a deep impact on a whole generation of women. The show was heralded as a pioneer of its genre for its accurate portrayal of the female experience and how awkward and confusing life can be in your early 20s. 

But Dunham was just a mere 23 years old when she sold Girls to HBO and that level of success at such a young age seems to always come with some level of trauma. 

Watch the trailer for Girls Season One here. Post continues below.

Dunham was first prescribed anti-anxiety medication Klonopin, at the young age of 12. But it wasn’t until her mid-twenties, when the pressures of her success and the negative press she was also getting at the time really took its toll on her mental health. 

“I’ve been through a lot of hard things in my adulthood. Getting off Klonopin was probably the hardest,” the writer told The Hollywood Reporter. 

Things came to a head in 2017 when Dunham felt was filming the final season of Girls and facing a lot of backlash for defending Girls writer and executive producer Murray Miller against rape allegations. 

Dunham later retracted the statement in which she defended Miller and penned an open letter in The Hollywood Reporter, addressed to the alleged victim, her co-star Aurora Perrineau. 

"I didn't have the 'insider information' I claimed but rather blind faith in a story that kept slipping and changing and revealed itself to mean nothing at all. I wanted to feel my workplace and my world were safe, untouched by the outside world."

"There are few acts I could ever regret more in this life… To Aurora: You have been on my mind and in my heart every day this year. I love you. I will always love you. I will always work to right that wrong. In that way, you have made me a better woman and a better feminist."

Dunham was highly criticised for her actions, with fans calling her a faux feminist and this added to the anxiety and stress that saw her abuse her prescription medication. She was admitted to rehab in 2018.

“Those images of me at the last Girls premiere, skinny and hollow-eyed, that was 100 percent my appetite and my body just shutting down in response to that,” Dunham told The Hollywood Reporter.

Lena Dunham, Girls S6 premiere 2017, Image: Getty

“Being sober in life is hard… But being sober is the first step to facing all the things that made you want to hide in the first place,” she told Variety. 

“I didn’t think that I was a drug addict… I thought drug addicts were depraved lunatics who wandered the streets, demanding crack from innocent children and flaunting their open wounds in public parks. And I was a successful, capable celebrity who wandered red carpets demanding attention and flaunting her open boobs on TV. It’s totally different,” she said.

When she entered rehab, Dunham felt that life as she knew it was over and she was right. But the writer made it a transformative experience for herself. 

“Seemingly overnight, I had lost almost all of what I hold dear: My relationships, my body and my career were in relative shambles,” Dunham said during a speech at a benefit for Friendly House Treatment Center. 

“Being me has sometimes hurt so much that I couldn’t bear it, but being me is also a super-power.” 

“And I’ll put my money on sober women any day — because a woman who has overcome an addiction can do f—ing anything.”

Dunham’s rousing speech came from the heart because from 2017 to 2018 her addiction and the Miller scandal were not the only things plaguing her. 

Dunham’s long-term relationship of five years with boyfriend Jack Antonoff ended. The writer also parted ways with her producing partner Jenni Konner and finally, Dunham experienced a traumatic hysterectomy because of her chronic endometriosis. 

Image: Instagram @lenadunham

After years of excruciating pain and multiple surgeries attempting with no relief, Dunham admitted herself to hospital and refused to leave until doctors gave her a hysterectomy. 

Opening up in an essay for Vogue, she wrote, “I gave up on more treatment. I gave up on more pain. I gave up on more uncertainty.”

And Dunham proved that women should always listen to their bodies because she knew something was deeply wrong inside of her and after her surgery, the doctors confirmed it. 

“In addition to endometrial disease, an odd hump-like protrusion, and a septum running down the middle, I have had retrograde bleeding, a.k.a. my period running in reverse, so that my stomach is full of blood. My ovary has settled in on the muscles around the sacral nerves in my back that allow us to walk. Let’s please not even talk about my uterine lining.”

Dunham is now celebrating five years of sobriety. 

Posting on Instagram, she wrote, “The last 5 years have been the happiest of my time on earth so far (at least this time around!). They’ve been full of work, love, complexity and- yes- pain. But facing all of that without medicating myself in unhealthy ways has given me a sturdy baseline and new tools.”

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A post shared by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham)

She continued, “5 years ago today, I set foot – trembling like a little kid – into treatment for substance misuse. My parents hugged me goodbye, I changed into house slippers and there I was… The struggle with addiction hit me little by little, then all at once.

"Ease was always the goal- ease in my body, ease in my restless mind and the ease to exist in moments of pain, anxiety, and uncertainty.

"Every day is a lesson I am lucky to learn, and I don’t take it for granted. So especially today, I am grateful."

Feature Image: Instagram @lenadunham

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