admin In 2013, Jinkx Monsoon won season five of RuPaul’s Drag Race at the age of 26. Upon taking the crown, she was no longer, as she described herself early in that season, “Seattle’s premier Jewish narcoleptic drag queen.” She was now, in the parlance of the show, America’s next drag superstar. Over the next decade, she’d tour the world, release albums, start a podcast, continue to develop her drag persona, and eventually return to the Werk Room to compete in RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7, joining the “all stars all winners” cast of queens who had won their own respective seasons of Drag Race or Drag Race All Stars.
This trajectory meant Jinkx was in the public eye in a way she had never anticipated—and also, she says, in a way she wasn’t ready for. Over time, she drank more as a way to help her cope with the pressures of stardom and to self-medicate her otherwise untreated anxiety, OCD, and depression. After nearly getting hit by a car while drunk in 2019 (after actually getting hit by a car while drunk a few years before that), Jinkx decided to quit drinking for good.
Today Jinkx is about three years sober from alcohol (though she says she still uses cannabis and remains “a huge weed advocate”), fresh off her All Stars 7 win (which included a truly iconic Snatch Game performance, which I implore you to watch here), and feeling good, grounded, and excited for what’s next. She recently spoke to SELF about her robust-as-hell (and extremely relatable) mental health practice, which includes therapy, video games, witchcraft, and Grindr.
Here’s Jinkx in her own words.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
When your life changes rapidly overnight, and you go from low pressure to high pressure or low profile to high profile, any underlying issues that you have yet to address bubble up to the top really quickly. When you are put under that extreme stress, things you thought you had a handle on for a long time, they just come to the surface.
I think I’ve settled into who I am now, and I’m really confident, but that took a lot of work. And I don’t think I was ready for this career when I did season five. I wasn’t ready for being a public persona. I would’ve loved a crash course in that. Or you know, like a night school education on how to effectively be in the public eye.
As an actor who thinks that being able to take notes and critique is an important part of your work, I thought going on Twitter and reading my Instagram comments and reading Reddit threads was a part of taking my critique…but what I found was the only thing it was affirming was my own insecurities. My therapist said that when I go looking for those comments, it’s almost a form of self-harm.
I had quit drinking two different times in my life; it was very much like, Okay, I feel like I’m drinking too much. It’s getting in the way of me doing my best work. It’s getting in the way of me being my best self. As a person who was raised to handle my problems myself, I’m gonna quit cold turkey. No one needs to know about this, I don’t need to talk to someone about this. I know what’s right for me. I’m just gonna do it.
Every time, I found a way back into it. Like, Well, I bet I could handle it differently. And I would drink responsibly for a while. I’d convinced myself that I could. It was this back-and-forth conversation with myself: Should I quit drinking, or shouldn’t I quit drinking?
One night in 2019, I went out, got blackout drunk, and I almost got hit by a car—again. I thought, I’m not gonna get lucky three times. I was newly in my relationship with my now husband, and he told me, “You were having fun with the fans, but I don’t think they saw the best side of you last night. And you almost got hit by a car.” When he said I almost got hit by a car, I was like, That’s it. That was the final thing I needed to hear. I downloaded the app I Am Sober, which works really great with my OCD.
I had not realized that I was so used to hangovers that I’d just accepted them as a part of my day-to-day life. I was also feeling better emotionally because I wasn’t playing that game everyone in my age group has played—the morning after, texting all your friends who you were with that night. “I’m sorry. Did I do anything? Was I obnoxious? I’m so sorry.” The “apology text tour” is what I called it. That gave me so much anxiety in my life. So at about six months, with all of that shit out of the way, I was like, This is the best decision I’ve ever made; I’m feeling great. I felt optimistic again.
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It was very much my community, those closest to me, who encouraged me to seek therapy. My best friend Kenny, who’s been my confidante, my right-hand person through everything for the last 10 years…Kenny just got to a point where they had to very candidly say to me, “There’s only so much I can do as your friend. And there’s only so much advice I can give you, not being a trained professional. And you really do need someone whose job it is to help you with this. You know, like someone who doesn’t have the whole history of friendship.”
And now those are the people who I’m excited to tell, “Oh my gosh, this medication—it’s really helping. It’s a totally different experience from last time.” My alarm goes off for taking my PrEP and I’m like, “Hey, everyone, it’s time for me to take my PrEP!” I love that. I like building a sense of celebration around taking care of myself.
Sobriety really just changed everything for me. This is something I learned in therapy, and, actually, Ru talked to me about it in regard to my sobriety and my anxiety: We start doing something and we form a habit and a possible addiction to something because it does serve a purpose. When you quit drinking, [the usual framework is] about how horrible alcohol is and about how your life’s so much better without it, but one of the things that made me very resolved in my sobriety journey is acknowledging the ways in which it helped me, the ways in which it calmed those intrusive thoughts.
“I had to learn a new way to cope without alcohol.”
Going into All Stars 7, I felt really prepared for it. I was about two years sober when it started. I was in a really loving, committed relationship. I was extremely ready. And still, when the announcement was made and the eyes focused on me, I was like, Oh, here we go again. So I doubled down on therapy. I upped my sessions. And through my therapist, I met a psychiatrist who talked to me about medication that could help.
I realize now what alcohol did was that it quieted that inner critic. It quieted those voices echoing in my head from the internet. It quieted so much of my anxiety. That’s how it came to have such a big presence in my life. I had to learn a new way to cope with those things without alcohol, and that took a while.
When I quit drinking, I bought a carrying case for my PS4, and I immediately started traveling with it everywhere because it was kind of a reward after my shows. It’s a hassle, but this has become my little ritual. I’m a big fan of rituals. Sometimes the hotel TV is not set up to let you plug something in, but I’ve unmounted televisions from the wall and then remounted them at the end of my day, just to be able to play my video games, because that is my reward at the end of the night instead of vodka. And so when DeLa [Jinkx’s close friend and drag collaborator, fellow queen BenDeLaCreme] teases me like, “Oh, I can’t believe we’re waiting for Jinkx to pack up her video game system,” I’m like, “Do you want the alternative?”
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I have a PS5 now. When I have downtime at home, it’s all fantasy RPGs. Right now I’ve got Horizon Forbidden West. When I sink into it, I need like four to six hours of “leave me alone, I’m playing my RPG.” On the road, it’s typically Overwatch. I always say Overwatch is the straightest, most masculine thing that I do because I get into it. I’m like [in a butch voice], “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”
I threaten relapses all the time, by the way. I gotta say, one of the things that really, really helps me to stay sober is comedy, having a sense of humor about it. And also I joke about my sense of superiority when everyone else is ordering drinks and I go [in a sarcastic voice], “I’ll have a water. Wow. You guys. Wow. Wow. I’m just gonna have a water. Thank you.”
I have to lean into those things that make it fun, you know? I had to replace alcohol with other fun things. And part of that’s humor, part of that’s video games, and, I mean, I’m still active on Grindr, so, you know.
“The secret to my success at this point in my life is witchcraft and therapy.”
When I started out in my own journey with witchcraft, it was like, I like witches…oh, people practice witchcraft? I’m no longer conditioned by my mother or Catholicism to believe that this is inherently evil! I’m gonna look into it. There is an episode [of my podcast] with Pam Grossman, who is a practicing witch. She has a podcast called the Witch Wave and she wrote a book called Waking the Witch, which is essentially like your introduction to practicing witchcraft as a modern-day human being, you know? And it’s very accessible.
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What I always say is: I practice witchcraft, but it’s not my religion—it is my spirituality. But more than anything, it’s my philosophy and my worldview. And when you think of it that way, it can really coexist with your belief in science, with whatever spiritual beliefs you might already possess. For me, it really feels like a philosophy because it’s all about mindfulness with your environment, how your environment affects you, how you affect your environment. Spell casting is essentially just guided meditations. It’s about tying a ritual to a mindset.
When I’m really, really anxious about something and I can’t stop thinking about it and the thoughts are intrusive and obsessive, I cast a spell. And then I say, “Time to let those thoughts go because the spell is now taking care of it.” Sometimes the spell involves an incantation, so the thoughts pop up and I say the incantation and I’m like, Remember the spell’s taking care of that. You can’t solve this problem with thought, so you’re gonna put your energy into the spell and let the spell take care of that. I have a couple spells where I’ve buried something in the backyard, and I’m like, That anxiety is now buried in my backyard. It doesn’t live in my head anymore. It doesn’t live in my body anymore. It’s in the backyard.
It’s like, there are certain things we can’t explain in the world, so I’m gonna choose to believe in magic and I’m gonna choose to believe that maybe there are some things that are intangible to us as human beings. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Everything I just said is how witchcraft coincides with my therapy. I tell my therapist about it all the time and he loves it. I finish my therapy call and I go into my witch book library and I pick up where therapy left off.
I travel with some of my books, and, when I’m gonna be gone for a while, I pack my pouch with stones that I need for that trip, and I’ll draw a tarot card that’s about the trip. Sometimes I’ll set up an altar. When I was getting ready for All Stars 7 to air, I had a traveling altar because I felt like I needed a little ritual to get my head out of the intrusive thoughts.
And lots of people give me crystals and stones on the road. There was this one time I was traveling and my bag became overweight, and I was like, What happened? Oh, I have a big bag of rocks in that suitcase now. But what I love about being gifted stones is that they’re not only gorgeous, but they’re infused with the positive energy and the well wishes from that person. So when I look at that stone yet again, it’s a physical object for a metaphysical concept. When I look at this stone later, I’m gonna remember that this was given to me with love and with best wishes.
I feel really good right now. I feel powerful. I don’t know if it’s because it’s Virgo season, or because my medication’s hitting just right. But everything’s coalescing right now, and it’s feeling pretty good.
