Lindsay Did At Least One Thing Right

Lindsay Lohan spends half her time being a punchline and the other half of her time being pitied. She went from being the actress that everyone was sure would be the next It Girl after great movies like The Parent Trap and Mean Girls to being a walking instruction manual of What Not to Do for every young starlet to come after her. Lohan's documentary series may have been cancelled by Oprah, but it showed a new side of Lohan that we all needed to see. Even though it's over, Lohan still admitted to drinking on the Alan Carr: Chatty Man show on Thursday and that was a bigger bombshell than any other she's dropped on the show.

Admittedly, it might not seem like it. After all, Lohan did admit to having a miscarriage and then casually revealed in an interview with Kode Magazine that she was dating a married man. Both of those seem a lot more shocking than having a drink. Lohan underwent treatment for substance abuse and 75 percent of people usually experience a relapse within their first year. It probably would have been more shocking if she'd been able to quit cold turkey. The thing that made it a bombshell was Lohan admitting to it when asked how long it had been since she'd last had a drink, though she was vague about it at first.

I don't know—a long amount of time. I mean there was a point on the show when I was in a relationship with someone, and I, like, had a drink and I freaked out and didn't want to say anything on the show as I didn't know how that would come across and I was just scared.

Lohan admitted two important things — that she had a drink and that she was scared to be open about it. Coming from a girl who spoke about her miscarriage on the show, this seems like a comparatively minor thing to freak out about. She talked about dating a man who was married with children and she was afraid of how she would come across for having one drink? But it makes perfect sense. Lohan's erratic behavior and unreliability have closed a lot of doors for her and every time she tries to turn her image around it never quite happens. Even Lohan's recent cameo in 2 Broke Girls was poorly received and the show is otherwise a fan favorite.

What Lohan was really saying when she admitted to falling off the wagon and fearing the reaction if she was honest about it was that she's afraid to be pigeonholed into being that girl anymore. She's trying to grow, she's trying to do better, and she may have realized that no one can be as hard on her as she's being on herself. She goes on to say, "And that's when it kind of hit home that I was doing a docu-series, and I was like you know what, I'm honest and I'm open and I've never really hid anything."

Lohan has lived up to that, or, at least, she seems to be trying to. For better or worse, she has opened herself up to the public as if to say this is who I am, this is who I'm trying to be, and I hope you can accept that. Will she ever return to the career heights that she had a decade ago? Probably not. Is she slowly but surely trying to earn back the respect she's lost? So far, yes. The world owes it to her to listen.