Former Model Jessica Landon's Skin Began To Rot After Drinking Vodka 24 Hours A Day
By TheBlast Staff on July 23, 2019 at 9:33 AM EDT
Jessica Landon, a former Playboy model and actress, says her skin started to "rot" from drinking vodka constantly. But it wasn't the vodka, per se, that caused that horrifying condition.
Jessica Landon / Instagram
Landon spoke for a recent profile, and explained what happened.
Landon was a Playboy model who had the chance to party with the likes of Hugh Hefner. She also lived her dream of being an actress, appearing on Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and NBC. But inside she was struggling.
Landon says she was an alcoholic, and was using that as a way to deal with sexual trauma she suffered when she was a child.
She says by 26, she was a "24-hour-a-day vodka drinker."
She did visit several treatment centers and had nine months of sobriety, but in 2013 she suffered a relapse.
Later, she tripped over a staircase railing while living in a stranger's attic, which caused her face to droop and her speech to become slurred. Doctors discovered she had a baseball-sized brain hemorrhage and safely removed it.
But that's not all.
She had another drinking relapse, because she hadn't yet hit "rock bottom." This time, she says she lay on the floor, drinking vodka for about a month, and getting weaker and weaker. As she lay there, she would urinate and defecate on herself. The acid from the urine gave her a staph infection.
"The acid from my urine was eating away my skin on my hips and tailbone which ultimately caused a blood staph infection. I knew I was dying rapidly and became desperate. I called an ex and begged for help."
Landon says out of desperation, she called an ex, who called an ambulance for her. She spent weeks in the hospital recovering and has been sober since 2014. Landon now works as a recovery coach and will become a mom in December.
Landon says she knows her story can help others:
"Self-worth does not come from attention, money or things; it can only build on actions of love and service to others. As long as you have life, you have hope. No matter how bad it is or how low you think you are, it is always possible to turn it all around. If I can get sober, anyone can."
