Watch Amber Portwood Prison Interview: Talks Addiction, Depression, Suicide
Earlier this week, Amber Portwood conceded that she would not be able to kick her worsening drug addiction, nor depression, exacerbated by the scrutiny of being on a reality television show. Portwood was handed a permissive lifeline when a judge initially gave her a caveat-laden plea agreement with probation and drug treatment for her felony drug conviction. However, it became clear Portwood could not stay clean on the outs so she backed away from her treatments, missed her court-ordered drug testing, and she asked to return to jail to serve the remainder of her five-year sentence with time served.
While in court this week, new information came to light about when/ where/ how/ why Portwod became an addict. She says she started using drugs age 12 or 13, although the catalyst for her backslide was 16 & Pregnant and Teen Mom. Moreover, her attorney Evan Broderick said in court this week, that, when Portwood was flown to California to meet with MTV producers, drugs were readily-available at the multiple parties she and other cast members attended together. And Portwood’s addictions and depression were direct results of agreeing to 16 & Pregnant and Teen Mom, and she wishes she’d agreed to do neither.
After a two-month period of sobriety, she started using again, following surgery to have gallstones removed after which she was prescribed hyrdrocodone to which she was already addicted.
In today’s ABC News interview, Portwood expounds on her addiction and depression: “I had taken 30 Suboxone within about three days. You know, the depression took over, and I’d just take four or five at a time underneath my tongue…and nod out. I had more than addiction problems. I had, you know, mental problems, too.”
Asked about ex-fiance Gary Shirley, Portwood tells ABC News interviewer Juju Chang, “We’ll still have a relationship and we still do.”
Further to the clip, Portwood says the easy money from MTV made things worse. Note, she was being paid $140,000 per season in 2010 earning $280,000 for the two seasons filmed that year. “Getting money at a young age, going to parties where drugs were given to you, that’s what really got me,” she said. “You make your own choices. [But] it’s like every time you go out to eat, you know, people are staring at you, talking, and it’s hard. You get paranoid… It’s not normal, to always be paranoid.”
She elaborates on her paranoia, depression, and her most recent suicide attempt: “In my situation, I felt in the program there were a lot of eyes on me. And it was very uncomfortable. I was not using my anti-psych medication even. You know, I was very depressed, all alone, all bitter at everybody. I felt like that wasn’t the life I wanted to live, I felt like I’d rather do my time, and get it over with, and make the best out of the situation that’s been handed to me. I felt like I had no reason to even be around, because I was a mom [who lost custody]. I felt like that’s what I was put on this earth to do, when I had her… and I started partying and doing drugs because I felt like I couldn’t do anything anymore. I lost my whole family, I felt like, they moved away from me. I lived such a busy life and I woke up sometimes and was like, am I too busy for my family? And I felt so selfish. I was so depressed. It became kind of scary for me. I felt the same way I felt a couple years back when I, you know, tried to commit suicide. When I walked in a courtroom, I was like, if you don’t do something, I’m going to have to.”
She explains why court-ordered treatment didn’t work: “It wasn’t just the program, it was the fact of being alone. It was personal. You know being alone, feeling like you’re hopeless, you have nothing, feeling like an addict and you’re never going to change, even though in your mind you’re working so hard but every time you get to court it’s not good enough. You want to be free. Who doesn’t? But you know if you can’t do it, if you can’t do it, why are you kidding yourself? I had been at such a low point, I couldn’t go any lower. There’s nothing lower than trying to kill yourself. That’s why it’s probably hard to understand why I did what I did. But when you mentally know that, you’re not right. You’re 22, and you tried to take your life twice. And you’re 22, and you’re still here, you don’t want to mess that up.”
Although she’s a little more optimistic about her future now: “I’m going to take some classes, I’m going to get my GED, take as many programs as I can. You know, just try to better myself for when I do get out and not stay in prison… I’ll be off the drugs, I’ll have an education to get me a job, you have to think of the positives in this negative story.”