Jessica Simpson Opens Up About Overcoming Addiction in Her New Memoir

From Harper's BAZAAR

• In her new memoir, Jessica Simpson opens up about struggling through addiction after experiencing sexual abuse as a child, along with other stressors.

• Simpson said she worked to become sober after going through therapy.

• Open Book hits shelves on February 4.

In her forthcoming memoir, Jessica Simpson opens up about struggling with and overcoming addiction after experiencing sexual abuse as a child.

Open Book, which was excerpted in this week's People, details her journey to sobriety and finding peace through therapy and a strong support network.

The abuse began when she was six years old, "when I shared a bed with the daughter of a family friend," she wrote. "It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable." At first, Simpson blamed herself. "I wanted to tell my parents," she wrote. "I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong."

She eventually told her parents when she was 12 years old while they were on a car ride. Her mom slapped her dad's arm, saying, "I told you something was happening."

"Dad kept his eye on the road and said nothing," Simpson wrote. "We never stayed at my parents' friends house again but we also didn't talk about what I had said."

The emotional pain from the experience, as well as dealing with other stressors like career pressures, led Simpson to rely on alcohol and other stimulants to cope. "I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills," she wrote in the book.

While her career skyrocketed with the reality TV show Newlyweds and the rise of her eponymous clothing line, Simpson's addiction continued quietly behind the scenes. At one point, her doctor even told her that her life was in danger as her alcohol dependency persisted (alcohol misuse is related to more deaths in the United States than drug misuse, and such fatal incidents have dramatically increased over the past two decades).

Then, during a Halloween party in 2017, she hit rock bottom.

She recalled telling her friends, "I need to stop. Something's got to stop. And if it's the alcohol that's doing this, and making things worse, then I quit." Her friends gathered her in a group hug. Later, and with the support of her parents, doctors, and biweekly therapy sessions, Simpson worked on overcoming her addiction.

"Giving up the alcohol was easy," wrote the star, who hasn't touched a drink since November of 2017. "I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb."

Therapy, on the other hand, was a more difficult endeavor. "With work, I allowed myself to feel the traumas I'd been through," she wrote. "When I finally said I needed help, it was like I was that little girl that found her calling again in life. I found direction and that was to walk straight ahead with no fear."

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