According to the Federal Ministry of Health, 7.9 million Germans consume alcohol in a form that poses a health risk. This includes people who are addicted to alcohol. Actress and presenter Jenny Elvers was also dependent on alcohol and sleeping pills for years. Eleven years ago, the public first got wind of the problems of the now 50-year-olds when they were on the NDR program “Das!” sat next to presenter Bettina Tiedjen, clearly drunk and slurring. “I was full to the brim,” Elvers later commented on her performance.
After her failure, she goes into withdrawal – the starting signal for an exhausting fight against addiction with inpatient stays and a lot of therapy. After the withdrawal she leaves her husband Goetz Elbertzhagen, with the help of her mother and a lot of mental work she manages the jump despite the setback. With success.
Today Elvers is healthy and looks back gratefully on the time. “Without therapy and without my son, who has always stood by me, and without the fact that I tried and stuck to getting healthy, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here today,” says the actress in an interview with “Bunte”.
What helped her on her way out of addiction: mindfulness. “Today I’m resting in myself, I had to get there first,” she says and continues “To be honest with others and with myself, to really take care of myself and to listen to myself – I only got that eleven years ago in therapy learned. And that makes me content and happy.”
Elvers was already open and spoke freely about her addiction. Last year, she spoke very openly about her drunk TV appearance on an NDR program in 2012 on the reality show “Club der Gute Laune”. “It’s part of me and it will always be part of me,” she said at that time. The actress has also written a book about her illness. In “Wobbly Years: My Life Between Glamor and Crash” she wants to take people with her on their journey out of the disease and be a role model.
Elvers, who was already seen as a reality star in “I’m a star – get me out of here”, wants to focus more on acting again in the future. Even a separate series should be planned, she reveals “Bunte”.
Sources: “Federal Ministry of Health”, “Bunte”
