As she did last season, house manager Jennifer Gimenez is set to give us her weekly take on each episode of Sober House with Dr. Drew. Below, Jenn talks about the fifth episode of the show: Jennie and Kendra’s tension, the departure and return of Heidi Fleiss and her own blow-up with Seth.
Dr. Drew came in right as Tom and Mike were in the middle of their big blow-up. He couldn’t have arrived at a better time.
I know. That was like a godsend at that moment. I remember I was texting him, “Please come.” I think he finished Loveline early, and literally as the mayhem was happening he walks up the hill. It was not planned at all. He walked straight up – he wasn’t even miked at that point.
That must have been a relief for you.
Yes! At that moment I was taking care of Kendra and keeping Heidi away from Tom. Seriously, it couldn’t have been more perfect timing.
Kendra reacted really strongly to this tumult.
There were definitely triggers for her, and as you saw in Sex Rehab, she doesn’t take that kind of fighting well. I think she reverted back to her childhood issues and trauma. At that moment, it was kind of like triage: what do you do, who do you save? At that moment it was Kendra, because she wasn’t involved in anything so I felt like I needed to protect her. I felt protective of the situation, because she was an innocent bystander brought into the mayhem. I think a lot of people were at that point.
Because she tested positive for drugs, Heidi had to leave the sober house. Were you disappointed?
I mean, that’s standard. I was brokenhearted because it’s such a sad thing when we do use. For whatever reasons, we are in so much pain and we just can’t handle life, so I was really sad for her. I was actually relieved that she was willing to come back and try it over again, but I knew that her being there would create more mayhem. We’re powerless over this disease, but we didn’t have the tools to take care of her as well as the rest of the house. I was proud of her for having the courage to try this again, though.
What was going on at this point with the jobs these people were assigned? Ever since their first days, we haven’t seen them working.
They didn’t continue the jobs. It was unfortunate, too. Sometimes in sober houses they do continue their jobs because they have to. But because there was so much going on, there were a lot of things everyone was trying to cram in to get these people going in life and also to create the show. Not to take away from the work that they did, but it didn’t continue.
Mike apologized to you, called you “sweetheart,” vowed to discontinue the, “F*** you”s. Were you buying it?
No, and it’s unfortunate for me to say this but it was a constant thing with Mike. You didn’t see that the night before, he really, really attacked me. That threw everyone off, especially Tom. It’s really hard for everyone, especially me, to hear that. When Mike apologized, I was like, “OK, I’m going to give it one shot,” but it was really wearing on me emotionally and mentally. I think the whole situation was wearing on me.
Yeah, at the end of the episode we saw you break down and heard a voiceover from Dr. Drew wondering how much longer you could manage this by yourself.
The group is so rough and so tough and so exhausting and I didn’t have any support. I didn’t have my circle of support. There were no free moments for me to make the calls to get comfort in my life and with my emotions. I didn’t have Dr. Sophy, I didn’t have anything except my texts or calls to Dr. Drew. It was me against eight. Sometimes I just wanted a hug. I just wish there were more tools that I had and that we had for a support team for me. My survival mechanisms were exhausted. I just kept trying and it felt like I was walking in and hitting my head into the same wall over and over in the same spot again. With Heidi going out and coming back, it was like starting all over again. Her disease was so alive — more than anyone else’s in the house at that moment. She wasn’t the same Heidi.
Did you ever beat yourself up over any of this? Did you ever feel like a failure?
I don’t know if I felt like I was failing — I just knew that I started shutting down. I don’t know if it’s about failing more so than it is waving a flag. More than anything I just wished I had my support team. If I was able to process my emotions and my feelings with somebody, then I would have more strength to keep going.
This episode finds tension brewing between Jennie and Kendra. Was that always there?
When they walked in the beginning of the season, they were tight. There was a good force going on there. And then you just saw it slowly disintegrating. That kind of happens when two people come from the same place. They came from the same show, Sex Rehab, they come from the same stuff in some way or another. I started seeing little specks of it. It really came to a head in the Jacuzzi, which happened the night after all the mayhem. We couldn’t have just one night of relaxation in warm water, you know? I remember just sitting in there thinking my muscles are trying to relax, and then they started and I was thinking, “How am I going to find the boundary here?” That’s when I was like, “Enough guys.” There was so much more going on than substance addition, and people were drawing from that. You had Mike’s mental issues, and you had the sex addition stuff. There were a lot of things going on. I felt like we were all walking on egg shells. I was at least. But we had to walk through the eggshells and stand ground.
The Jennie/Kendra tension also pervades rock-climbing.
Yes. That was a activity to get everyone’s mind off of things. Here I was telling everyone, “Come on, let’s do it!” It was an awakening for me, just going through it, but in the back of my head, there was the Kendra/Jennie thing going on. I knew it was coming. I just didn’t know when it was going to happen and at least no one got hurt. There was no verbal abuse happening. They were shouting, but they did it, in a weird way, with respect, and that’s kind of the process. I let it happen, because what was I going to do? Try to stop something these people were feeling? Block them from their feelings? Kendra and Jennie both wanted to stay away from each other, there were boundaries set and that was great.
You had it out with Seth. Was it disappointing that it came to that?
One of the things that we’re asking is: do your chores. The trash was overflowing. Everyday I asked, “Please do your chores before you leave.” I was picking up after everyone, and then when stuff wasn’t done or when it was dirty, everyone would come to me instead of confronting each other like, “That’s not fair!” I was angry with Seth after asking him over and over again. I was begging him. I sounded like a broken record. He then threw a fit at me. It was sad, but I just went with it. In the end, it was like, at least Seth showed emotion. He has a lot of anger, and I realized that he wasn’t angry about me. The funny thing is that afterward, I ignored Seth and that’s the worst thing you can do to him. The next morning, he had coffee on my table. I told him that I had to be tough with him. The people who loved and helped me with my sobriety were really tough on me. They wanted me to get it. They were afraid of going to my funeral.
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