A week before Lindsay Lohan served her short jail sentence, she met with Vanity Fair for a cover shoot and interview.

On her drinking, she says “If I were the alcoholic everyone says I am, then putting a [SCRAM] bracelet on would have ended me up in detox, in the emergency room, because I would have had to come down from all the things that people say I’m taking and my father says I’m taking—so that says something, because I was fine.”

She names her father, Michael Lohan, as the main source of her problems “I think my biggest focus for myself is learning how to continue to get through the trauma that my father has caused in my life.” She also talks about having hung out with the wrong people for years, contributing to a lot of her problems. “So many people around me would say they cared for the wrong reasons. A lot of people were pulling from me, taking from me and not giving. I had a lot of people that were there for me for, you know, the party.” And when she first moved to L.A., Lohan says, “it was very go-go-go and I had a lot of responsibility; and I think just the second I didn’t have [structure] anymore—I was 18, 19—with a ton of money and no one really here to tell me that I couldn’t do certain things … And I see where that’s gotten me now, and I don’t like it.” She says tabloids were her main source of news, and calls that “really scary and sad… I would look up to those girls… the Britneys and whatever. And I would be like, I want to be like that.”

On reports that the latest controversy affecting her acting career: “I don’t care what anyone says. I know that I’m a damn good actress. … And I know that in my past I was young and irresponsible—but that’s what growing up is. You learn from your mistakes,” she tells Vanity Fair.

Lindsay adamantly denies having any drug problems: “I’ve never abused prescription drugs. I never have—never in my life. I have no desire to. That’s not who I am. I’ve admitted to the things that I’ve done—to, you know, dabbling in certain things and trying things ’cause I was young and curious and thought it was like, O.K., ’cause other people were doing it and other people put it in front of me. And I see what happened in my life because of it.”

The October issue of Vanity Fair will be available on newsstands in New York and L.A. on Thursday, September 2, and nationally and on the iPad on Tuesday, September 7.

Tags: Lindsay Lohan, Vanity Fair