Best of Episode: Jennie Crooks

**Dr. Drew** (0:09)
Hey, buddy, welcome to The Dr. Drew Podcast. We appreciate you all being here. Like I always say, do support people that support us, and do check out some of the other stuff we're doing. The streaming shows are really getting a lot of traction and interest from people. That's over at dr.drew.tv. It is, generally speaking, three o'clock Pacific time, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, that we do move that one around a little bit. Though the Wednesday at three, we never miss, which is with Dr. Kelly Victory, who's an ER doctor and public health trained physician who sees things a little differently than I do. And I think we're going to get into more and more stuff where she and I diverge more and more on ideas. And we tend to talk to people that don't have other outlets. And as you might imagine, some of the ideas are kind of... But even so, I always learn new things that I had not thought of, did not know. And so it's really important that we just sort of open ourselves to other ideas. The whole notion of misinformation and disinformation, totally new and alien idea for me. It was always interesting ideas that help us clarify our own. That's how we always looked at it. But now all that has a sort of negative blush to it. Today has no negativity. We are talking to Jennie Ketchum Crooks. She's a master in social work from University of Washington 2016 Her post and clinical training was at Polyclinic Behavioral Health Passion for Process-Based Therapies. And as a result of that, she has founded and developed West Coast Anxiety, where she is currently a psychotherapist. westcoastanxiety.com is the website. Follow the Instagram at WestCoastAnxiety.
And Jennie and I got to know each other in the mid 2000s, doing this little thing called Celebrity Rehab. And now look at Jennie, she's a pro with two kids. That's amazing. Married for like seven years now, right? Eight years?

**Jennie Crooks** (2:03)
Yeah. What an adventure I did not anticipate I would be on when you and I met on the Celebrity Rehab shows.

**Dr. Drew** (2:12)
And I'm absolutely sort of weirdly flashing back to you with your chopsticks in your hair. Yeah.

**Jennie Crooks** (2:18)
I almost wore them today. I was like, should I instantly give Drew some like really intense trauma reminders?

**Dr. Drew** (2:26)
Flashback. Cues, as you would say. And so for a couple of things I want to know. I want to know, A, what has changed in your outlook as a mental health professional from last time we spoke? But before we do that, because I think like I feel like you've been evolving in terms of your, not just your expertise, but sort of, I think, what you think is important for the human experience, I think, is probably a way to characterize that. And then what we can do about it to help people make better. But before we get into that, just to sketch people for people that do not know you, your history, if you don't mind.

**Jennie Crooks** (3:03)
Yeah, of course. That's what you and I met in 2009, when I thought it would be a great marketing opportunity to join a sex rehab show, because at the time I was a porn star. And I thought, well, this is just the perfect thing for a porn star to do. She's just a workaholic. No, no problems here. And then turns out in rehab, you cannot use marijuana or drink Jack Daniels.

**Dr. Drew** (3:30)
What?

**Jennie Crooks** (3:32)
I was like, I'm not here for this stuff.

**Dr. Drew** (3:35)
Very demanding.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:36)
Very demanding.

**Jennie Crooks** (3:37)
Jesus. So, you know, all my feelings turned back on. And you guys started calling me Jennie instead of Penny. And there was just this really intense dissonance in my head about like this life that I was living, the life that I had lived before, and the life that I had possible ahead of me. And I just didn't, it became harder and harder to reconcile life as Penny Flame with what may have been possible as Jennie. You know, and so before we met, I was in the adult business for eight years, in front of and behind the camera.
Before that, I sold weed. Before that, you know, complicated family upbringing, complicated relationships with my dad, with my mom. Which, you know, I mean, attachment is a thing. And I always think about, you and Jill at one point noted to me like how lucky it was that I was able to form secure attachments. Like, given some of the experiences of my youth. And I think about that often now, both in my personal life and also in my professional life and with the people that I'm working with.