John Galliano Opens Up About Alcohol And Prescription Drug Abuse

John Galliano lost his job as head designer of Dior after a 2011 anti-Semitic rant in Paris.

Now, two years later, John Galliano opens up about alcohol and prescription drug abuse that lead to his behavior, his “I love Hitler” comments, and the subsequent Dior firing.

Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair previewed the story that’s in the July issue of the magazine, released nationally June 11th, 2013. John shares his childhood, his passion for fashion, and his future career plans, but what do people really care to read? His problems with alcohol and prescription drug abuse.

Galliano says he started using alcohol in an effort to, in his words, “crash after the collections.” He would take a few days to unwind, but alcohol had other plans. Gradually his desire to escape for a bit lead to blackouts for days at a time. He’d wake up not knowing what happened, and then experience days of tremors, shame, and an inability to sleep.

Prescription Drugs

Galliano’s solution was sadly prescription drugs. After a while John realized, "I was going to end up in a mental asylum or six feet under."

Being fired from Christian Dior was actually a blessing in disguise, he tells Vanity Fair. It was the wake-up call he needed to change his life. He checked into rehab and started to get clean.

Kate Moss then asked Galliano to design her wedding dress. He feels that was his time to be himself again; to use his creativity and unique style again.

What Caused It?

So through all of this, what really lead John Galliano, and what really leads anyone, to a life of alcohol and prescription drug abuse? For John, he feels it was his tumultuous childhood. For alcoholics and addicts overall, unresolved events of trauma, abuse, neglect, or abandonment can leave residual low self-esteem, shame, guilt, and a diminished sense of self-worth.

As he got clean, John wanted to figure out where his anti-Semitic rage came from, and as he tells Vanity Fair, 'I now realize I was so f****** angry and so discontent with myself that I just said the most spiteful thing I could.’

Denial

Denied anger and sadness creates angry and sad adults. Repressed emotions that were never dealt with resurface with alcohol and drug intoxication.

While in treatment, the goal is to work through all those past events, issues, and emotions so that the root of addiction is addressed once and for all. Without the identification of your demons, you are really unlikely to get well.

Emotionally Painful

That’s why we see a lot of celebrities (and addicts in general) who have 2, 3, or 4 stints in rehab before changes are really made. Maybe the first time in rehab was too emotionally painful and events of the past are still too hard to face. Relapse and a return to drug and alcohol ensue, but eventually that person ends up in rehab again.

Maybe the second time is a little easier, and issues are addressed, but then the changes made in rehab are not continued after the program ends, and a relapse happens weeks or months later. Drug and alcohol abuse will always lead back to a need for treatment.

Lessons Learned

The lessons learned and issues processed are never lost, even through many cycles of relapse, but addiction is progressive and will only get worse when not properly treated.

John Galliano seems to be living a healthy life in recovery. He is two years clean and sober, and is working to get his fashion career back on track. Alcohol and prescription drug abuse had a hold on his life for a while, and he hit his rock bottom. He worked hard to complete treatment and stay clean, and now hopefully he can continue sharing his gift with the world.

Jared Friedman is quality improvement manager at Sovereign Health Group a dual diagnosis treatment center http://www.sovcal.com. Keep up with Sovereign Health Group and Jared Friedman on Twitter.

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The Celebrity Accessory That Money Can't Buy

Celebrities seem to live in a world where everybody they meet is so obsequious and eager to fawn over them that they forget that they are just everyday people who happen to have one talent which they’ve exploited successfully

Britney’s had one, Mariah’s had one, Even Margot Kidder’s had one (Lois Lane from the Superman movies, keep up) Michael Jackson seemed to live in a constant one and now Charlie Sheen has had his Celebrity Meltdown too.

I won’t bore you with all the details here, you can catch Mr Sheen doing his thing just about anywhere you like, that’s not the point. The point is that celebrities seem to live in a world where everybody they meet is so obsequious and eager to fawn over them that they forget that they are just everyday people who happen to have one talent which they’ve exploited successfully.

Justin Bieber recently expounded his views on pre-marital relationships, same sex relationships and planned parenthood. He’s a callow teenage boy who’s been brought up as a Christian and hot-housed into stardom by his parents; what does he know about anything? And yet, because of his celebrity status people convince themselves into believing that they care what he thinks. The last teenage opinion maker of any real note was Joan of Arc, and look what happened to her.

So when the rich and shameful go on their rants they come from an environment where people hang on their every word and no-one contradicts them. Mel Gibson has been learning some lessons in what the real world is all about recently, he blames his upbringing as if that’s a mitigating circumstance and it transpires that his drink driving outburst wasn’t the first time that he’s expressed his views on Hebrew culture and political influence.

John Galliano is now persona non grata for getting wrecked in Paris and ragging on people he thought were Jewish. Christian Dior spent no time thinking about their decision to cut him loose when the allegations of hate speech and racial abuse came out notwithstanding that he claimed to have been provoked and the police failed to charge him. He’s apologised now and appears to be working with the Anti Defamation League to turn the situation around and rehabilitate himself.

Unfortunately for them, stars are also the victims of their own success, people love to watch a car crash, it’s an evolution thing. If we’re scared of it we watch it very carefully so that it can’t take us by surprise. When it comes to a celebrity wigging out we watch because we’re familiar with their hyper reality, when things go wrong for them it causes a certain degree of weltschmertz, clearly something we naturally averse to.

The problem is that while we are watching them drive their lives into a brick wall with their foot firmly on the accelerator is that they are so accustomed to mass attention that they think they are actually achieving success. Sheen went on TV raving about The Charlie Sheen drug, tigerblood and winning and achieved a million followers on Twitter; he also lost his million dollar per episode contract on Two and a Half Men but now he has his own online channel through which he can talk directly to his fans not realising they’re gawpers who are simply rubbernecking.

And he’ll keep on doing it well after the first flush of ‘success’ because he’s a performer. That’s the tragedy, he thinks people are watching him to support him because that’s the only kind of feedback he’s ever had. As he continues to mug up for the cameras he’ll destroy himself and reputation making worse and worse mistakes as he gets more desperate. Look at Dustin Diamond making a frankly skin crawlingly embarrassing ‘sex’ tape, failing miserably and still floating it thinking it would boost his career, not realizing it took him from being a has-been to a WTF? With nothing in between.

Dan Cash writes on various issues of contemporary culture.In other news, he has a wide collection of wigs and also has a disconcertingly large number of fancy dress outfits, not limited to halloween costume ideas.