*Long before Paris Jackson reached six years of sobriety, she was grappling with something she found harder to admit than the addiction itself: the kind of person she had become.
Speaking on the May 26 episode of Jack Osbourne’s “Trying Not to Die” podcast, the 28-year-old singer-songwriter said the behavior she displayed during her years of drug and alcohol use cut directly against the values she grew up with. She described going through “years and years and years of self-hatred” as part of that period.
“It’s really ugly behavior in a moral way, because I was raised to be kind — not nice, I could give a s— about being nice — but kind,” Jackson said, PEOPLE reports. “Being kind and looking people in the eye and asking the waiter their name so you can write it down on the receipt later, just little things of, just like, how do you treat people?”
What troubled her most, she explained, was watching her moral foundation disappear the moment alcohol entered the picture. “‘Oh, I may be a liar, a cheater, a piece of s—, a thief, whatever, but I do have a moral compass, like, I was raised right in that way,'” she recalled thinking. “What happens when I drink is that goes away. That goes right out the window and I become a very vindictive person.”
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Jackson said the roots of her struggle showed up well before substances were ever part of the picture. As a young child, she noticed patterns in herself that she would later recognize as early markers of addictive behavior. “There was this overall reachy, graspy energy that I only ever see in other addicts,” she said. “Reaching for something outside of yourself.”
She also opened up about pain that predated any substance use. “I struggled with self-harm for a really long time before I ever had my first drink or drug,” Jackson said.
She first sought treatment at age 17. In January, Jackson addressed her sobriety on Instagram, disclosing diagnoses of treatment-resistant major depressive disorder, CPTSD, and OCD.
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