Trinny Woodall says she was kicked out of ‘terrible’ first rehab for watching porn – but finally quit drugs by selling her belongings to pay for treatment before earning £8.00 an hour in a halfway house
Trinny Woodall admits her first spell in rehab ended prematurely after she was caught watching a pornographic video with other residents.
The TV stylist was in her twenties and in the grip of drug addiction when she submitted herself to a residential treatment program for the first time.
But she claims it was a bruising introduction to in-patient therapy due to its confrontational approach and ended earlier than expected when she was told to leave for watching an X-rated film.
Recalling the incident during an appearance on Steven Bartlett’s Diary Of A CEO podcast, Woodall, now 59 and more than 30-years sober, said: ‘That was a funny one, but not funny in the end. It was a terrible rehab.
‘Rehabs now are very different but it was a very, very shaming place. It would be closed down now. It didn’t have a very good way of dealing with things.
Opening up: Trinny Woodall admits her first spell in rehab ended prematurely after she was caught watching a pornographic video with other residents
Old times: The TV stylist was in her twenties and in the grip of drug addiction when she submitted herself to a residential treatment program for the first time (pictured right in 1984, when she was 20)
‘In that whole scenario there’s definitely a feeling of you’re thrown in with people you don’t know and you reveal your life. It was a time when you would write down your life story.
‘They did this stuff where they would get twenty people to critique how bad your life had been, in a room, and judge you for it. Looking back now that was the only way rehabs worked in the UK.
‘So when you bring up that porno film it was that sense of let’s do something funny because we’re having such a shi**y time here, and it backfired and I was chucked out.’
Outwardly Woodall projected an image of success during her twenties, but her personal life was blighted by an addiction she says was fueled by a lack of self-confidence.
She said: ‘Things happen in your life that begin to fine tune and define who you’re going to be. I went through phases in my late teens and early twenties of turning to drugs because of not being happy with who I was, not knowing who I was.
‘Sometimes people turn to drugs because they don’t know who they are. They have an inner lack of confidence, and I definitely had an inner lack of confidence.’
After a series of spells in rehab she got clean as she approached her late twenties, a period she admits was a catalyst for significant change – both personally and professionally.
‘When I got clean at 26, 27, that was a huge beginning of the change in my life,’ she said. ‘I was so relieved that my twenties were over, so relieved. That was a big moment for me to begin to work out who I was – that was the first moment, probably.’
Looking back: The TV stylist recalled the incident during an appearance on Steven Bartlett ‘s Diary Of A CEO podcast, available to watch on YouTube
Clean and sober After a series of spells in rehab she got clean as she approached her late twenties, a period she admits was a catalyst for significant change
But the TV personality and Trinny London founder’s treatment and early recovery was soured by tragedy.
She said: ‘I had three really good friends, and we were all using one night, and I said let’s make a pact and go to rehab tomorrow. Two of them had been, and one of them had never been.
‘The next morning I woke up and I still had that feeling, which is rare, so I called a therapist that I knew and I said I need to go but I have a window of opportunity that is so small, I need to go literally in the next two hours because I’m scared that I’ll change my mind. So he got me in somewhere, and I stayed for five months, and I sold what I had to pay for it.’
She added: Some very tragic things happened in that time, and one of the people died, and then I went to a halfway house in Weston Supermare for seven months, where you kind of live off £8.00 to £10.00 a week, it pays for your fags, and I worked in an old people’s home.
‘I came back to London a very different person, then in that following year another friend died, then in another two years they’d all died.’
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