Former Sex and the City guest star Kristen Johnston revealed that she was not sober while filming the show.
“I was a hot mess,” Johnston, 58, said on the Wednesday, September 2, episode of the “Dear Chelsea” podcast, stressing she “never” used drugs or drank alcohol while on set. “I was just kind of messy, like late at night after I was doing a lot of theater. [There was] a lot of drinking after theater, lots of wine, the occasional foray into cocaine, but I knew what I was talking about. Let’s just put it that way.”
Johnston appeared on SATC season 6, in which she portrayed party girl Lexi Featherston, who infamously proclaimed, “New York is over” and “I’m so bored I could die” after being told she couldn’t smoke during a society party. The character ultimately plummeted to her death after falling out of a skyscraper’s open window with a cigarette in hand.
The actress has been candid about her substance abuse struggles through the years.
“I think I was an addict since I was a kid, even though I wasn’t, obviously, doing it then,” Johnston recalled on Wednesday’s episode. “I, like, just needed to escape always. I did not like being in my skin. One of the first things I really had to figure out was how to be in my skin.”
According to Johnston, she learned to fill her time with different hobbies instead of drinking or using drugs.
“I had to come up with crafts,” she said, revealing that she even gifted podcast host Chelsea Handler one of her DIY decoupaged trays. “The trays can be anything from West Elm or they can be from Etsy.”
Johnston explained that, once she got sober, she needed to “think of other things to do with [her] time” instead of drinking.
“You don’t realize until you quit how much time, if you’re a real active addict like I was, how much time is spent figuring stuff out, how to get this, getting that thing, getting this delivered,” she said. “It takes a lot of energy.”
Johnston has been sober for a decade.
“There was a little burble about 10 years ago,” she said of a previous relapse. “And then, before that was 10 years, so altogether, probably 20.”
While Johnson acknowledged that the Alcoholics Anonymous program “wasn’t for” her, she leaned on a friend acting as a “sober companion.”
“I got sober in New York, so my whole home group is there, and I did go [to meetings] for a year pretty diligently,” Johnston recalled. “Then I just was like, ‘Let me just try to wing it.’”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
