It wasn’t an admission I saw coming from Jackie O, but it was one I applaud her for. But publicly revealing that she’s a recovering addict worries me, and not for the reasons you might think.
Admitting she has a problem with alcohol and painkillers is a brave step for Jackie O, star host of breakfast radio show The Kyle & Jackie O Show. By doing so, she helps other women who may be struggling, opens the door to a more open discussion about addiction, and comes across as vulnerable and honest, which is something I always appreciate in people.
Author Amanda Goff was impressed by Jackie O’s (pictured) courage when she admitted her addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. However, she fears Sydney’s eastern suburbs are not the place for a woman in early recovery.
That hasn’t stopped the trolls, who are in large numbers, from complaining that she only did it for publicity.
Jackie is a smart woman, she knows the media, is the media. Of course, she knew that her admission (which she checked into California’s Betty Ford Center in 2022 for alcohol and prescription drug addiction) would boost ratings, hit the front pages, and promote her memoir, The Whole Truth, which, Coincidentally, it is published today. .
But that doesn’t matter to me. I respect anyone who admits they have a drinking problem. It’s not easy to become vulnerable, especially when you’re such a well-known public figure…and I should know that. While I’m not even a fraction as famous as Jackie, I’ve been a regular figure in the news since I admitted, in 2014, that I was not only a prominent journalist and mother of two, but also worked as a high-end escort under the name Samantha
Samantha X is the protagonist of an explosive anonymous book called Hooked: The Secrets of a High-Class Call Girl, which I admitted was actually my memoir.
And, like Jackie, I talked about my battle with addiction a few years ago.
My tumultuous relationship with alcohol lasted ten years, with the last three or four being the worst. I was a compulsive drinker: I would drink a bottle of champagne on a night out, get blackout drunk, and suffer from hangovers for days.
“If there’s anything that’ll give you a champagne and drug habit faster than you can say ‘bags’, it’s Sydney’s east,” writes Amanda (pictured). “Let me tell you: if you want to be clean in the east, you need to work very hard because here not only the rent is high, but so are the people.”
Then one morning, when I was 44, I woke up in a Melbourne hotel room. I was hungover, depressed, and felt a sudden urge to jump. I called my friend in a panic and she took me to a 12-step recovery meeting that same day. That was six years ago and I haven’t drunk since.
It is really difficult to quit alcohol using willpower alone. It’s the most addictive, dangerous, and widely available drug in the world, but I didn’t want to die, so I went to the meetings and learned how to confront the problems I’d been trying to numb with alcohol.
I don’t know Jackie personally. She interviewed me once on her radio show almost a decade ago when I came out as Samantha
We are both the same age (well, she may be 49 a year younger), we are both in recovery and we both live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. I’m in Bondi; It’s a six-minute drive away, on the quiet streets of Clovelly, in a $13.25 million waterfront palace.
If there’s anything that’ll give you a champagne and drug habit faster than you can say “bags,” it’s the East. Those who want to be clean in the east need to work harder because not only the rent is high here, but so are the people.
Fast cars, fast lifestyles and fast addictions.
I have lived in Bondi Beach for 25 years. Bondi is iconic. It’s exactly how the media portrays it: beautiful people, models in thong bikinis walking the streets, gorgeous bare-chested surfers.
But the healthy lifestyle is a juxtaposition, because we all know that if we look beneath the surface, most people in the East do cocaine and drink champagne more than they run on the beach.
Amanda said she was hungover for days and had toxic thoughts when she drank; He is pictured on the left after a night of partying and just on his way to the airport, hungover amidst his drinking problem.
They actually do both, which has always surprised me. After a night of partying, she would spend the morning crying with shame, hugging the toilet bowl, without bringing the Bondi to Brontë.
The East is full of Peter Pans: middle-aged men (and women) who refuse to grow up, who spend their afternoons huffing and puffing before school and sobbing into tissues on Monday mornings after school weekends. intense week. It’s a superficial lifestyle: being seen at wellness studio openings or promoting the latest sports fad online, but also snorting lines on a dirty toilet in a bar in Double Bay.
Fun when you’re 25. A real problem when you are 45. A tragedy if you are 50 or older.
I’m not directing this at Jackie; She made it clear what drug she was addicted to and it was prescription painkillers, not cocaine. I’m talking to all the women over 40 who still do this.
And I know they are, because they tell me so. They want to know how I managed to untangle myself from the hell that is addiction. They know how difficult it is to not only be sober, but stay sober in a place like Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
They want to know how I did it because they need help. They know that their Friday night ‘wines and colas’, their ‘mummy relax drinks’, have lurched towards full-blown perimenopausal alcoholism.
They know that their drug addiction (whether it’s Valium, a little cocaine here and there, a bottle or two of wine) has become a daily necessity. But what they don’t know is how to escape the toxic situation they have managed to get themselves into..
They realize that saying no to their group of party friends (and I use the word “friends” loosely here) is harder than you think. Everyone likes to keep up with the Bondi locals, but I know the secrets those walled gardens hold. I know there are ice addicts who run businesses, health gurus with cocaine habits, mothers who pick up their children from private schools with several glasses of white wine..
Amanda has lived in Bondi Beach for 25 years. Beautiful women in bikinis and gorgeous bare-chested surfers are just one side of the coin (archive image)
I’m not going to sugarcoat it: it’s very difficult to stay sober here. Staying sober when everyone around you wants to party is a challenge.
That’s why, after almost six years without drinking alcohol, I still attend recovery meetings. I need to be reminded of how bad it got and how bad it can be. Rehab is great as a circuit breaker, but it’s the continuous meetings and constant monitoring that keep you sober.
My social circle is very small now. I choose solitude and sobriety over being seen at the last restaurant or going to the last bar. Some may call me boring or say I have changed. Yo have change. Thank God I have changed! Changing has saved my life.
But Bondi hasn’t changed. East will always be east. Parties will always be parties and the lifestyle will always be there.
Jackie: It can’t be easy for you in your world and I take my hat off to your sobriety.
It takes a strong person to live in Jackie’s world and stay sober. As we say in the 12 step program, it’s easy, keep it simple, one day at a time.
I wish you the best of luck.