FEATURES

'Teacher of the Year' Ivan Ray brings his talent to GHC
Doug Webb moves to Florida after 13 years of service at GHC
Dr. King accepts position as site director at Marietta campus

Jodie Sweetin encourages drug-free lifestyle for students

By Amanda Stegall
[email protected]
Assistant Editor

Jodie Sweetin spoke to a large and diverse crowd on the night of Nov. 2 in the Lakeview Auditorium.

Although Sweetin's lecture was informative about her struggles with drugs and alcohol, her message was encouraging and motivating.

Most people remember Sweetin as Stephanie Tanner from "Full House." Even with the pressures of working on a sitcom as a child, Sweetin stated, "I would not change anything about the way I grew up."

At the age of five, Sweetin was thrust into the limelight of celebrity life and expected to be an adult. As a child actor "you're expected to be an adult, know your lines, be on time and basically be this adult person in this little body...If you're sick you work, if you're tired you work. You're very disciplined," Sweetin said.

"You learn over a period of time to start pretending everything's ok, and it becomes a pattern of life," Sweetin continued.

With the skill of being an excellent pretender, Sweetin was able to hide her addictions from those she loved. "When 'Full House' ended I was 13 years old and went directly into my freshman year of high school," Sweetin stated. "I always wanted a 'normal life' or what you could call a normal life."

Sweetin was an only child and never had interactions with people her own age, and once she was in high school the pressures to fit in comfortably with her peers were intense. "The one thing that I wanted more than anything was just to blend in with the wall," Sweetin commented during her lecture. "I just wanted to be like everybody else."

The passionate desire for a normal life eventually led Sweetin to discover and become addicted to alcohol. "At age 13 was when I started drinking," she said.

The first time that she ever drank changed Sweetin's life. "It made me feel better. It made me feel like I could talk to people more and I could not be this person that they thought was so different."

After the constant struggle to find herself throughout high school, Sweetin attended a college that was located 20 minutes away from home. With constant struggles with her parents, Sweetin decided to live on campus. College life and consistent partying introduced Sweetin to the vast world of drugs.

"My freshman year of college I had a .9 GPA. You really have to work hard to get a .9 GPA," stated Sweetin when recalling her frightening lifestyle and embarrassingly low grades.

With new substances to abuse Sweetin was willing to do anything to achieve a high. "I wanted to do anything possible to get away from my own head and escape my own thoughts," she said.

During her last night in the dorms Sweetin realized that she could continue her substance and alcohol abuse, or die. "At 18 � years old I was afraid of death, and life was unmanageable; I was out of control," she stated.

At this point, Sweetin returned home, and when she was ready to go back to school her first class was Theology. "I heard people talking about their lives, and I realized that there were other people going through the same thing I was," she recalled. Sweetin made the decision to change her life after that class. She became happy again, made the Dean's list, bought a house and married her boyfriend.

Six months after her marriage Sweetin relapsed into drinking and later turned to harder drugs that she had never tried before. "I tried to hide it all because my husband was a cop. After the first time I tried speed, I discovered that it was a lot easier to hide than alcohol," stated Sweetin.

Speed may have been easier to hide, but within one month Sweetin was completely addicted. "I dropped everything for that drug," she recalled. "I didn't have time to stop and process what I was doing, and all I could think about was the next time I could get it, use it or find it. Speed took me to some of the scariest and most frightening places I've ever been," she said.

After two and a half years of using speed on an elevated basis, Sweetin crashed. On the night of March 19, 2005, Sweetin was so high that she attempted to exit her friend's car while it was in motion. When her friend parked the car, Sweetin stepped out and fell to the ground. She woke up in a hospital to discover that her husband was there to take her home.

"I can't describe the horrible agony I felt at that moment," she stated. "I couldn't look my husband in the eye because I knew that he knew what I had done."

Sweetin suffered from acute alcohol poisoning, heart arrhythmia and a 95 degree body temperature, which classified her as hypothermic.

Sweetin entered into a rehabilitation program in California, where she was forced to face her fears and look at herself in the mirror. During her six-week stay at the rehab center, Sweetin and her husband realized that irreparable damage had been done to their relationship through her substance abuse and divorced.

Although her story is a shocking reality, Sweetin considers herself "lucky." "I'm lucky to be alive," she stated. "I'm very fortunate to be sober and be here today to tell my story."

Sweetin's lecture at GHC is the seventh lecture she has given for a speaking tour. "I'm very happy to be here," she stated, "and I hope that I can make someone else feel like they can relate and seek help." Sweetin also said that she wants everyone to know that "it's never too late to make a different choice. Never give up."

For friends and family of someone who is struggling with an addiction, Sweetin commented that abusers feel helpless. "They need for their loved ones to enable and support them and love them through it all," she said. Sweetin stated that if people are abusing substances, their hurtful actions are "nothing personal" to the ones they love.