Jennie Ketcham - I Am Jennie

D RUNK AND HIGH, HOLED UP IN A HOTEL ROOM WITH a beautiful blonde she barely knew, Jennie Ketcham was thirty-six hours away from entering rehab. Her on-camera alter ego, Penny Flame, was a rising star. Her personal life, however, had been getting worse for years and finally hit an all-time low.

Guys are gonna want one thing from you . To Jennies young ears, her fathers advice meant one thing: You can use your sexuality to control men . Life was imploding around her: her parents divorce, their spiraling addictions, her deteriorating relationships with them. She lost her virginity at thirteen and began a game of initiating boys her age into manhood. For the fleeting moments she spent in bed with them, she got to be the center of attention.

Eventually, Jennie found pornthat enticing world of immediate gratification, endless drugs, and seemingly endless moneyand became Penny Flame. Divorced from her feelings, tempted into a lifestyle she couldnt afford, financially or emotionally, she entered Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew to boost her career. But when Dr. Drew and his staff insisted she go by her real name, the once indestructible walls she had built around herself began to burn down.

Two stories make up this direct and disarming memoir: that of a troubled girl desperately fleeing intimacy and herself, and that of a woman courageously breaking down emotional barriers to build a new life. Many will recognize Jennies struggles: confusing sex with self worth, addiction with love, detachment with strength. Ultimately, I Am Jennie is a tale of a woman who considers herself a work in progress but who finally understands that the only person she can truly afford to be is herself.

I HAD NEVER ALLOWED MYSELF TO WONDER WHY I RAN FROM PEOPLE , from connection, from what Dr. Drew was labeling as intimacy. I had never questioned why I habitually hurt the men I dated, or the people in my family. I had never thought: Jennie, why are you doing this?

In the past, I had simply acted, and then moved forward. If I felt like crying, I shut the emotions down. This quality made me a good porn star. But it suddenly didnt seem like a great way to live.

Its a wall, I whispered.

What do you think is behind that wall? Dr. Drew said.

He looked directly in my eyes. The thought of something existing behind this impenetrable wall was horrifying, exhausting. I grabbed a Kleenex, thinking if I could make the perfect triangle, I could dab my inner eyes without disrupting the glue that held my fake eyelashes in place.

Hopefully, a caring, sensitive person who can have meaningful relationships, I said.

JENNIE KETCHAM is a former porn star who began her recovery from sex addiction on VH1s Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew and Sober House with Dr. Drew . She writes a popular blog, Becoming Jennie , about her new life as a writer and student. She lives in Los Angeles.

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COPYRIGHT 2012 SIMON & SCHUSTER

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Copyright 2012 by Jennie Ketcham

Note to readers:

This work is a memoir. It reflects the authors present recollection of her experiences over a period of years. Certain names and identifying characteristics have been changed. Dialogue and events have been recreated from memory, and, in some cases, have been compressed to convey the substance of what was said or what occurred. Some scenes are composites of events, and the timeline for some events has been compressed.

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First Gallery Books hardcover edition July 2012

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Designed by Jaime Putorti

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4516-4476-0

ISBN 978-1-4516-4478-4 (ebook)

To the people Ive hurt,

and the people who helped me

figure out why .

J ennie Ketcham is a special personand I knew it from the first moment I saw her.

Of course, the irony is that the first person I saw when I showed up for work at the Pasadena Recovery Center on April 6, 2009, was Penny Flamea vivacious, outrageous, camera-ready professional in the adult entertainment industry. Penny showed up for her stint in rehab with a suitcase full of sex toys and a plan to use her reality TV exposure to fuel her destructive quest for a dysfunctional definition of success.

Dont get me wrong. I liked Penny; I was charmed by Penny, often amused by Penny, andto my chagrininitially deftly played by Penny, who used her wit and humor to keep any real connection at arms length. But it wasnt long before I came to love and respect Jennie , the brave, real, and substantial woman hidden behind the facade.

Penny may have decided to come to rehab, but it was Jennie who decided to commit to recovery. Her story is the story of the road to health. This unsparing retelling of how she came to be sitting across from me in rehab and her journey into the real world as an authentic participant sends a loud and clear message to anyone who is struggling with pain, confusion, and choices that have led down a dangerous road. Choices have consequences, and in this book those choices play out in real time. Jennies story makes explicit that there is a point of no return. It also makes explicit that you dont need to be rescued, or cast out of society, or emotionally numb. You dont need to die of addiction. There is a way out.

Jennies story shows how people recover. Simply put: we all affect one another profoundly. I made the effort, and spent the time, to not be distracted by Penny Flame and to tune into Jennie. I paid attention to who she actually is, rather than who she was projecting out into the world. Jennie was brave enough to risk the scrutiny. She could have turned and run from it. But for whatever reason, she was surprisingly willing to allow me to be present with the real Jennie.