Lindsay Lohan: "I'm an addict."

As regular readers of ISBL know, I am a purveyor of all Gossip Lohan. I have followed her ups and downs and downs and downs since her first arrest and stint at rehab six years ago; there have been at least six — and some it's more — rehab stays in the last six years, along with numerous arrests for everything from jewel theft to probation violation.

I was definitely on Team She's Getting Away With Murder because I believed, and still do, that if a Regular Joanne had been arrested for the multitude of crimes that Lohan has been arrested for, she would have had really long jail sentences, and not these 2 week jail terms, and these 4 week Malibu rehabs.

I was also one of those who felt that, given her past, and her present, there was little hope for a Lohan future. I just happened to believe that one day we’d be sitting around watching the news and the little crawl across the bottom would say Lindsay Lohan Dead at [fill in the blank]. It just seemed where she was headed.

But ... and there's always a but where Lohan’s concerned … this last rehab stint, a much longer ninety days — thirty at the Betty ford Center and 60 at promises in Malibu — may have down the trick.

Last night on OWN — and I’ll refrain from an Oprah rant until the very end — Lindsay sat down with the Cookie Monster Oprah — sorry, sometimes it just happens — for a one hour tell all and, well, I gotta say, I liked her.

Lohan, not Oprah.

“I’m an addict.” Yup, she said it. She admitted to alcohol use — her drug of choice — along with many more cocaine usages than the previous ‘just three times’ story she used to tell. And she admitted she was addicted to Adderall, though she said she took it for ADD and not to lose weight or stay awake. But she admitted to being an addict; she admitted to being a giant f**k up; she, for the first time in any interview I’ve ever seen, took responsibility. 

And, again, I liked her.

I found it interesting to note that, while her parents had a very volatile relationship—which is putting it mildly—Dina and Michael didn’t officially divorce until 2007. And what else happened in 2007? That was the very year Lohan started going down; car crash, DUI, cocaine possession, DUI, car crash kidnapping, arrest, rehab, theft, arrest, rehab, rehab, rehab. Now I ain’t no shrink—though I play one here on this blog thing apparently—but it seems like the end of her parents’ marriage took a toll.

And Lindsay owns it. She owns the fact that her struggles started when she moved to LA at age 18 and began hanging out with people who used her for trips and plane tickets and fun times. She admitted to being an alcoholic who abused cocaine basically because it allowed her to drink more.

I always say — or someone, Bill W, I think — that the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one., and Lohan did that. She was lucid, intelligent, thoughtful, thought-provoking, and responsible in her Oprah interview.

I liked her, I really liked her.

I did find it hard to believe her when she talked about her parents, and doesn’t feel they owe any responsibility for her descent into addiction. I mean, what parent let’s their seventeen-year-old, who is being paid $7 million a movie, move to Los Angeles alone? And what parent, when they learn that their child is out of control and partying too much, doesn’t fly out to LA and drag her ass home? What parent, instead, says she’s just a girl doing the same things all girls her age are doing?

Not Michael and Dina Lohan. That’s for sure, because they each have their own issues, addictions, whatever, to deal with. But, as Lindsay also admitted, she’s kind of addicted to chaos and drama and maybe, just maybe, she loved her parent’s issues with one another, and all that drama. Maybe she reveled in the fact that whenever she was in trouble, in court, in jail, in rehab, there was drama and there were her parents, adding to the chaos.

Whatever her reasons, I’ll say it again, I really liked Lindsay Lohan last night. I think she might be on the right track this time, and I actually hope so.

Lindsay, if you can, don’t let me down.

No, scratch that: don’t let yourself down.

SIDENOTE: 

Oprah.

Lord what a pompous gasbag. Lord does she thinks she is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-cookie-eating.

At the tail end of the interview, Oprah asks Lindsay if it was true that she was heading off to Europe after the interview—which was taped four days after her release from rehab—and when Lindsay replied ‘Yes,’ Oprah warned her not to go.

Europe is quite the playground, she warned. Oprah said she is addicted to food—and I’m gonna let that just lie there—and if she had just gotten out of food addiction rehab she wouldn’t go to a potato chip factory, so Lindsay should steer clear of Europe.

Oprah, honey, for all your alleged smarts, do you not realize that an addict is an addict is an addict, and Lindsay, if she wants her booze and Adderall again, could get them in LA or NYC or freaking Idaho if she wanted. Europe isn’t the drug capital — especially when your drug is liquor — and for you to suggest that Europe is bad for Lohan blames her addictions on an entire continent, not on Lindsay herself.

Sure, maybe far from home she might find it easier to slip into old habits, but you can slip in your own house just as easily.

SIDE-SIDENOTE: Lindsay did, in fact, cancel her vacation In Europe.