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There have been a number of insulting claims about Luann de Lesseps’ rehab stay. Some of her co-stars think she only sought treatment to stay out of jail.

But Luann herself made a claim, just before she returned to rehab this summer, that she is "too busy to be an alcoholic."

The timing was … not ideal.

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Recovery Today Magazine‘s podcast has a pretty specific demographic.

That is why this particular interview — one of so many that Luann did over the summer — didn’t immediately catch everyone’s attention.

But Radar Online reported this week on the contents of the July interview in which she claimed that she was "too busy to be an alcoholic."

"My journey is so long," Luann says.

"Sixteen years ago," she narrates. "I was in the Swiss Alps and I had a car accident with my children in the car."

Luann de Lesseps is Looking Good
(Getty)

"I fell down the side of the mountain and my Range Rover rolled off the side of the road," she describes the harrowing event.

"I thought that I killed myself and killed my children," Luann shares. "I had just come from a tea party with Elle McPherson."

When asked if she had been drinking, she replied: "No! I was coming from a tea party. I was not drinking there. No."

"Well," Luann reconsiders. "I was having red wine at dinner. It is European. You know, red wine at dinner. Red wine."

Luann de Lesseps on Broadway
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To be fair, that is pretty standard if she consumed it in moderation.

Luann says that, back then, "I never had a problem with alcohol."

"But," Luann says. "I did have a problem as of recent."

She then explains that this problem arose "because I was self-medicating."

Specifically, she was self-medicating as a coping mechanism for the lingering trauma of that ghastly brush with death in the Alps.

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"Listen, I am too busy to be an alcoholic," Luann declares.

She then says, curiously: "I am not an alcoholic because alcohol doesn’t work for me."

After that odd statement, she explains how she began to use substances following that horrifying accident.

"I had post-traumatic stress from the accident," Luann reveals.

"Ever since then," Luann continues. "I woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning."

Luann de Lesseps Mug Shot
(Florida PD)

"So, I would shake," Luann confesses. "So I started taking sleeping pills and Xanax to get myself together."

"But I was not a big drinker," at the time, Luann says. "I was a mother, a wife, a countess."

It was more recently that she began to struggle after using alcohol to cope.

"Being arrested and going to jail was bottom," Luann says. "Going to jail was rock bottom."

"The night that I got arrested, I shouldn’t have gotten arrested," she claims.

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"But it was the perfect storm," Luann continues. "Life was like, ‘you got a problem, girlfriend.’ I chose to go to rehab."

Luann then explains why she says that she should not have gone to jail after the December 2017 incident.

"It happens to people all the time," she says. "People should be in the hospital, not in jail. I was like, ‘Why am I here?’ I’m only drunk."

It was … not her best interview. And it happened right before Luann relapsed and then returned to rehab.

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We think that we can translate some of her statements, however.

When Luann says that she’s too busy to be an alcoholic, she’s reminding herself as much as anyone else that alcohol would interfere with her life.

When she describes her accident, we’re inclined to believe that alcohol was not a factor in the crash.

(She had her kids with her, folks — the alcoholism came later.)

Luann de Lesseps Poses
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When she says that she shouldn’t have been arrested, she means that health issues such as addiction should be treated, not criminalized.

In any event, here’s hoping she gets treatment, and it takes.