Life Uncut - The Truth About Addiction. Uncut with Kate DeAraugo

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

We initially got to know Kate DeAraugo in 2005 when she won the crown of Australian Idol! She was just 18 years old. But her post Idol journey was anything but a fairytale; it spiralled into addiction and legal troubles. In 2017, Kate was convicted of drug possession, drug driving and weapons possession.  This conversation with Kate is a deeply honest recount of what it can be like when you live with addiction. Kate has what a lot of us would describe as an addictive personality, someone who took everything to the extreme. She says that when she drank, she drank too much. When she ate, she ate too much. When she loved, she loved too much. These behaviours took Kate to some fairly dark places.  Kate shares: After winning Idol, the only thing anyone spoke about was her body Record labels saying she needed to lose weight and having full body liposuction at age 19 The narrative of addicts being from ‘broken homes’ isn’t realistic What led her to seeking out drugs in the first place and how that spiralled into more heavy substance abuse The toll it took on her family How families can help support an addict & what her family learnt that ‘worked’ How addicts think and what happens inside their minds Addiction is a lifelong condition, but sobriety is a responsibility You can find more from Kate at her website  You can listen to Kate’s podcast Why Do I Feel This Way  Laura mentioned a famous study about addiction that you can watch in Johann Hari’s Ted talk here You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Cammeraygal land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany. And I'm Laura. And today we have an incredibly powerful episode with Kate DeRouge. Now, you might have heard of Kate's name. Back in 2005, she was the winner of Australian Idol.

But what happened to Kate after wasn't the fairy tale that we all led to believe will happen. It really is a story that floored me. And the way in which Kate, and I don't even want to call it a fall from grace, but when you think about being at the top of the reality TV pinnacle, Idol back in 2005 was like everybody knew who she was. Everybody knew what she was capable of and this is a story about the demons that she was fighting at the time. Kate talks about addiction in this episode. She talks about addictive personalities and how that unfolded in her life. She was arrested. She was charged for drug driving. And she also found herself in incredibly abusive relationships. This conversation

is one that I think if you have ever had a predetermined idea of what addiction is, this is something that I think will really open your eyes as to how people who are suffering from addiction or who are addicts themselves, how they experience life and the reasons why someone may be led down that path. Also, just the way she speaks so openly about how you can go from being a beautiful bubbly blonde confident successful 18 year old to a meth addict is something that a lot of people think how could you possibly get there like what could have gone on in your life to have gotten there it truly is a story not just about the lowest of lows and hitting rock bottom but it's it's the highs and the way she pulled herself out of it and got her

life back on track to live now a completely fulfilling healthy and loving life kate thank you so much for joining the podcast today no worries girls thanks for having me we start every episode the same and that's with an accidentally unfiltered story and we just said kate do you have an embarrassing story and your response to that which was funny in itself you were like i was a drug addict for a better part of a decade of course i have embarrassing stories and then it made me think i was like is it appropriate to ask that question but we're gonna do it anyway and you can tell us whatever embarrassing story you feel comfortable with as i said i've got a few but probably one of the more appropriate ones is the young divas were on tour and I as you can

imagine we're meant to come out full of attitude and strutting on stage down this set of stairs and I was full of attitude and sass and I just went face first down the stairs so that was pretty that was pretty embarrassing I love that you said I was a drug addict I have so many but your embarrassing story was before that I was probably during but yeah oh it all matches in yeah kate like there's so much about this like your life and where you're at now that we want to unpack and understand and it's really beautiful how vulnerably you speak about the lessons that you've learned and where you are now in life in this recovery but i would love to go back to 2005 i'd love to go back to your experience on idol and you know this is for anyone if you

don't remember this is such a pinnacle time in reality tv casey donovan was the winner the year prior of Australian Idol in 2004. And it was like the height of viewership of Australian reality TV. So you really are kind of plucked from obscurity and then put onto the absolute mass center stage where everyone in Australia knows who you are and what you're doing. What was that period of your life like? Well, I mean, I was 18 and a kid and had really no concept of what I was doing. And I'd auditioned two years before as well and got not through the front, you know, I didn't get through the front door so I guess I spent a lot of it pretty disassociated from my body and I know that's really sad but I talk about that a lot like I was a kid and a young like a young adult that

was just so riddled with fear and imposter syndrome and all of that stuff that I just just was forever in fear that I was going to wake up one day and someone was going to say Kate this is a big giant mistake if you could just fuck off you know I hope I'm allowed to swear here sorry I'll try really hard not to so yeah it was a crazy time but it was also one of the most exciting times and people always ask me oh would you do idol again and I don't blame this and I don't blame that and I always say you know yes it was a difficult time for me but it also gave me the opportunities to do the things that little girls dream of you know I got to sing in front of thousands hundreds of thousands of people you know I got to sing at grand finals I got to sing

all over Australia and do incredible things. And I wouldn't give that back for the world. What did it do for your confidence at such a young age? You said you applied twice and didn't even get through the front door. So I'm assuming that when you did win, you were not expecting it, but at only like 16 and 17 years old, getting knocked back, thinking that you're good enough to go and apply for this, but then them saying like, we don't even want to hear from you. Did that set you up with any sort of lack of confidence before you even got started? um yes and no I think look I just to be honest I wasn't going to go to the third audition I had no intentions of going I was living on the Gold Coast at the time and I was running pub crawls

for backpackers and I was on the Sunshine Coast hungover if the truth is and my singing teacher rang me and said get your ass in the car and get to those auditions just even just to see if you've improved from the year before like so I didn't probably the third year I went in with a really different attitude. Like the world didn't rely for me on me getting through. It was just to see if I'd got any better and could get a little bit further than the year before. You just said then that you auditioned and you were hungover. Was that already at 18? Do you recognize that you already had issues with alcohol or substances prior to doing Idol? Or do you think that it was kind of enmeshed in that time? I mean, I've done everything to the extreme since I was forever.

you know my first experience with addiction started with food when I was a little kid you know what I mean like I just did everything to the absolute extremes always so when I drank I drank too much when I ate I ate too much when I was in a relationship I loved too much like I just do everything too much still I wasn't in any kind of dark addiction by that point but the I guess the behaviors were already there when you do something like reality tv and I mean you know we've spoken about it a bit because we've had our own experiences with kind of living very normal lives and then all of a sudden having everybody in the country having an opinion on the way you look the way you talk I mean in your case the way you sing like there's so many things that you get

criticized and critiqued on what did that do for you and when you say you already struggled with you know overeating at that time when you were younger like and already struggled with body confidence issues, going and putting yourself out there on a platform where so many people have an opinion on the person that you are. What did that do to you? It destroyed me, to be honest. Like I had already through high school and primary school always struggled with my weight and really just hated the body that I lived in for as long as I could remember. And I guess, you know, I'd picked up lots of bits of information and situations that had helped me confirm that I wasn't okay in the body that I was in for years. And then I stepped

into this world where people thought it was totally acceptable and they had the right to comment on the body that I had on a really public platform and I didn't realize at the time but it became trauma like it became trauma for me you know people every time I looked at something no one was talking about my singing or my voice or music they were talking about the size of my ass in a pair of jeans yeah wow well I guess it just becomes like a core message and a learned thinking you know that was just my thinking that it was just drilled into me that what was considered beautiful and acceptable was that unattainable skinny look. And like, it didn't matter how many hours I spent on a treadmill or how many bits of lettuce I ate. Like I was never going to look

like that. Like it just wasn't achievable for me. So I just lived in this world where it didn't matter what I did. I just didn't feel like I was good enough. I'd love to kind of get an understanding of like what that period was because you've come out, you've won Idol. There are so many opportunities that open up for you in that point, but there are only opportunities if you're able to seize them and make the most of those opportunities what happened for you were you able to to be fully engaged were you at a point where it was too challenging to like what was going through your mind and what happened like in a sequence after that oh so much happened but look and I just do want to say like I talk about these experiences really openly and honestly but I don't

I don't ask for like it's not a pity I don't feel like I've I've done all like I've come out the other side of it and I'm and I'm okay but you know it was hard like I had a record label and management company that wanted me to look a certain way and I would get in trouble for not being a certain size like we would go on a photo shoot especially once I hit the young divas we would go on a photo shoots and I wouldn't fit into clothes and again that's super damaging for a young girl I would show up but I would just show up riddled as I said with so much fear and anxiety and just hatred for myself and it's it's hard to be present and do your best work when you like that's your baseline were the record label in your management very open about the fact that

you needed to lose weight is that literally there's no scooting around the edges it was like hey to be successful you need to trim down they didn't say it in that many words but they may as well have many times and look it was acceptable to do so in that time like people could tell you like people would openly say you gotta lose weight or you know and I remember I did lose weight at one point and the head of the record label at the time come up and said Kate you're on the right track just keep going you know oh wow right so yeah it was just okay and look I had full I had my first major surgery around my body when I was 19 I had full body lipo from head to toe which was certainly pretty supported by both record label and management at the time

at 19 I don't recommend it well it wasn't the solution either you know what I mean like it was a quick fix and it sorted some things out momentarily but it didn't deal with the core of the issue and it didn't deal with the internal world like it didn't take any of that away I woke up and these you know that thinking and stuff was still there so yeah I guess and looking amongst all that that's when I met drugs and that's when the drugs then became my new solution to all those problems that I'd carried around forever until they weren't when you say you met drugs do you think that that was part and parcel of being I mean everyone kind of associates like this celebrity lifestyle or being a rock star like moving in those circles with the accessibility

is that and was that your experience 100 i mean you know anybody who's you know cocaine and i haven't been in the industry for a little minute but like i'm sure it's still the same yeah cocaine is no different to be like here's a beer and here's a line and it was really normal and you know all my life i just wanted to be thin cool and acceptable and all of a sudden i met this thing called cocaine and it was my solution to my life suddenly i i wasn't eating the same i felt cool and acceptable and people wanted to be my friend because I was in a position where I could afford it and so people wanted to be around me so how often do you think you were doing cocaine at that time in the early stages look initially it wasn't it wasn't like I did it and then I did it every

day from then on but I was obsessed from the minute that I had it I wasn't just like oh I'll have a line and enjoy my night and go home go to bed and get on with it like everybody else it was like where did that shit go and where and how can I get more of it immediately and I was obsessed like I was obsessed with it going around the room I was obsessed when it was going to be my turn again and I guess even though I didn't use it every day from then on I thought about it and I thought about when I was going to how I was going to and and yeah it was in my mind always it's so fascinating to me there's been a research study that was done on cocaine with rats I think a lot of people might be familiar with it but in like a quick summary of what this research study

was, is that one rat and they gave it the option of normal water and cocaine water. And the rat drank the cocaine water, obviously, until it died because it became addicted to it. And then, I can't remember the name of the scientist who came along, but someone was like, when it comes to addiction, this is a flawed study because the study itself doesn't bring in all of the things around community. It doesn't because rats are social animals in the same way that humans are social animals. And so they did the same experiment, but they put the rat into an environment it, where it had all the things that would make it like a rat heaven, you know, with like games and wheels and other rats, like they gave it a community. And then they gave it the two sources

of water and also the water that had the cocaine in it. And all of the rats tried the cocaine water, but because they had all the other things in their life that gave them purpose and made them excited to just be rats, they preferred the water in most instances. And so it was a real change on the original study. I've literally never heard of that study. Oh my God. Okay. I'm going to link super famous it's a super famous study it's a really famous study around addiction and it's really fascinating because you know it looks at addiction as being a really holistic thing where it's not just because you get addicted to a thing in your life it's not that you're just addicted to cocaine but it also can be because you're lacking in other things in your life that give

you support that give you a feeling of a sense of purpose a sense of belonging for you specifically you mentioned that addiction had been something that was a part of your whole life that everything was to the extreme and that when you discovered drugs it just kind of followed a pattern that you'd already been exposed to in your life have you in the self-work that you've done figured out what is it like where did that addictive personality come from and how was that shaped in you as a person look it's there's lots of different ideas and theories and thoughts about addiction and ways of recovery I am a big believer in the disease model of addiction and I believe that I have the disease of addiction and that it's I guess the best way for it to explain it is

like when drugs hit me a bit like someone has a peanut allergy I have an allergic reaction like it just hits my body a bit different to the way it might hit yours or somebody else's and the obsession and the compulsion sets off and I can't stop and you know it's not a curable disease in the way of there's no medication that'll make it go away forever but it can be arrested and I can live a life in recovery from it and that's the that's the model that I've gone down so I I believe that that was in my DNA and it was a perfect storm in my life as you know a chain of events that that set it off if that makes sense you ended up being addicted to a horrific drug ice how did you get from drinking cocaine to as far as ice people always ask that question and

I wish it was that I wish it was simple but look my drug addiction span over the best part of 14 years and obviously the drugs that I used and abused over those years like changed and progressed and the people that I spent time with changed and progressed until one day you know I was in a situation where someone offered me meth and by that point my self-esteem self-worth and all the things that go with that were non-existent so it wasn't even a thought like if I in my sane sober brain someone said try some meth you'd probably go people say that's pretty bad and your life goes to shit when you do it and you think about it but by the point that it was offered to me I was already too far gone to even care I just wanted to feel better and I just wanted the pain

to be taken away. Did you know and understand at the time the impact that this was having on your life or did you think that you still could hold it together like you could hold the success down you could do the work opportunities you could still be a singer performing on stage or did you see, fuck, this is really spiraling out of control for me? Oh, that's a great question. Look, I was already pretty done by the time I really met ice. You know, I did have a second go at trying to relaunch a career, but I was already gone. Like I was already so deluded in an ice addiction. I was like, yeah, yeah, I can do this. It'll be fine. What I'm about to say is controversial, but in the beginning, ice made me be better than I was before. You know, before I sort of got to ice,

I was a pretty bad alcoholic. I was drinking a lot. I was doing a lot of drugs. I wasn't in a good, I didn't look good. I wasn't in a good way. But when I met, when I met Crystal Meth, like I was productive, I started to lose more weight, which made people take me more seriously. Everyone was like, you look fantastic.

I was like, yeah, I do. Which is crazy because you know, then yourself that like, you've never been lower. You've never been worse or more unhealthy. And it's, I guess that's the vicious cycle. Yeah. but in that small window in the beginning on the outside to everybody else you know everyone was like wow Kate's really on top of her game until I wasn't so I guess in answer to your question no I was so deluded and I'd already been in addiction for so long that my my thinking was just it was

shocking what did rock bottom look like for you so I had lots and lots of rock bottoms over the years I had lots of public rock bottoms I got caught drug driving I did all that all over the newspapers lost my career lost contracts all that extra like rode off cars lost houses lost boyfriends lost all of that external stuff heaps of times too and I get you know rehabs all all the stuff that you would assume would be enough for someone to say yeah probably should pull up now that's probably enough but the rock I mean I don't know how deep you want to go here but like the rock the rock bottom for me was a really my final rock bottom was a really quiet personal moment and I was sitting on my bathroom floor I was in a domestic violent relationship at the time

my face was a mess I couldn't use drugs the way that I wanted to use them because my veins were all busted and I just caught myself in the mirror and I was like who the fuck are you like who and how did we get from that 18 year old girl on Australian Idol with the blonde hair and all the opportunities at her feet to this and I just knew in that moment that if things didn't change I was I was going to die and um that was the beginning of the end of my active addiction I guess I've been addicted to drugs for a really long time but crystal like meth or ice whatever you want to call it was the one that brought me to my knees it was the one that made me do things that I didn't think I was capable of doing. It made me do behaviours. It turned me into a criminal. It turned me

into some things that I still can't believe that I did. So I guess it sort of fast-tracked that internal devastation. So sorry. I'm so grateful for you sharing this and being so honest about it. I grew up in a household with a stepdad who was a heroin addict. Yeah, right. And I very much understand that the person that people are when they are an addict like I and I'm talking hard drug addict the way that they behave and the things that they do aren't congruent with the person that they are at heart and it makes you do fucking horrible things because you throw your ethics out the window you throw your person out the window because you are so hell-bent on the next hit or the next it's like you lose a part of yourself to to addiction and I think there's

something incredibly powerful about being able to to drag yourself out of that hole because not everybody has the ability to do that but the honesty around it is something that I can see how hard it is for you to share it but genuinely I'm very very grateful for you sharing that part of your story well it's the reality of it I guess a lot of people think that addiction comes you know to be an addict or whatever you have to come from a broken home or abuse or all that sort of stuff i grew up in a house with a mom a dad a brother sister surrounded by love on paper all the things that suggest that i should have been a happy healthy balanced kid adult in my life but that just wasn't my experience and the thing about addiction and the thing that i've learned over the

years of recovery and the people that i've met in recovery is addiction don't give a fuck who you are it doesn't care i don't care who your mom is who your dad is how much money you had in the bank what school or how smart you think you are if it gets you you're got and and it can take you places that well it took me places that I didn't think I was capable of being it just it's and it's not in this person that I sit here today like I can't fathom doing those things I just couldn't even imagine it and there's so many families who deal with addiction in their family whether it's a cousin a sister a brother a son like a daughter that there is so many families across Australia that addiction rips apart in different ways.

What was the impact it had on your family? Oh, my God. You know, there's no rule book on how to raise any kid, let alone one that turns into a drug addict. And, you know, that's not something that they'd ever had in their lives. And so knowing where to go and to get the right help was really hard for them. And I know, you know, for many years they thought they were loving me, but they were just enabling, they were actually enabling me for a long, long time. But I guess

the impact on them, you know, my parents are one thing, but I think the impact that it had on my siblings who were younger than me and what I stole from them and their childhood and their upbringing, you know, is horrendous and very traumatic for them too. Has it impacted your relationship now with your siblings? It did for a long time. You know, my brother and my sisters and I had a bigger gap when we were kid is about eight years so we probably weren't that close when we were younger but my brother and I were very close and like I just did all the things that an addict did you know I lied to him I stole from him and he watched what I did to my parents and eventually he always loved me but he

hated me couldn't stand the sight of me didn't want to know me didn't want to be around me and he was just so angry and in the end he admitted that he was just terrified he just was so scared that he was going to wake up one day and his sister was going to be dead. In what way were they enabling you? Because I know there'd be a lot of people listening right now that have no idea what to do, but all they want to do is help somebody with an addiction. So I'd love to know what that looks like and then how you got to the point where they were able to help you and get you on the path to sobriety.

It's super important. And I, you know, I guess I knew all those years and I got myself in all kinds of situations and and whatever but I always knew my mum would come and get me no matter what happened and of course she would she's my mum and she loved me but you know or I would get in a debt or I would need money or whatever it might be and they would just try and fix it for me they would just go yep we'll fix it because you know I'd burn a relationship to the ground and my mum and dad had come and got me and brought me home to Bendigo and set me up in a house and did all of these things where they just thought they were trying to help but inevitably like that was enabling

because I just knew that I'd be okay and I'd always land on my feet and eventually they went and got their own help they got really educated around addiction and the best way to support somebody in addiction but also they went and got their own support as into how to take care of themselves and my brother and sister at the same time and those two things combined really changed I guess really was the catalyst and one of the big things that changed to help me get better because my mum got shown I guess how to make really firm boundaries and then hold the boundaries and be like Kate I'm here for you when you're ready to be right and when you're ready I'm here with open arms and I will always love you but I'm not going to support you using anymore so there's a lady in

Melbourne who was a big part of saving my life her name's Belinda Walsh she has a rehab called sober living rehab and that was where I went after my like lockdown facility and she really helped my family know where to draw the line but I guess of course when you ring your mum and you say I'm starving I've got no food I haven't got anywhere to live she's gonna want to give you money but the difference was she'd go no worries Kate and nine times out of ten I none of those things were true I just wanted money so she would go no worries Kate I'll meet you at the supermarket and I'll buy your bag of groceries and there's the difference but yeah professionals I think getting somebody who knows how to show you how to love an addict the way they need to be loved

not how they think they need to be loved is is the difference there's something really different about your story in that so much of this happened on a public scale i mean so much addiction happens behind closed doors it's really shameful it's something that families don't talk about when you are someone who is a public figure and you're dealing with this in your life and then the things that you do get splattered across the daily mail or whatever other publication has picked it up how did you reconcile with that and with the public perception around the person that you were and where you were at in your life uh it took time it took a lot of healing and but you know the thing at the end of the day that I need I needed to make peace with my story for me first

and I guess that's a big part of the reason that I did the first season and why do I feel this way because every when I came out the other end the public and the media all they know is this girl from Australian Idol got caught using drugs selling drugs whatever the hell I was doing and weapons and all of that la-di-da stuff and then she disappeared and then I popped back up however many years later a different version of myself and everybody wanted a piece of that story and I don't trust the media as far as I can kick them to share it so of course you know it was my way of taking my power back and going yeah all those things did happen I did do all those things and this is why this is how it got there and this is then how I got out but you're 100% right like

my story is actually not that outrageous in the world of addiction it's really common I'm not nothing special like you hear my stories every day when you are in the circles of addiction and recovery and and rehabs like it's it's a run-of-the-mill story but I guess because I was in the public eye it just seemed so much more shocking. You don't need us to tell you this but maybe you do but I think it is special and I don't think you are like every like every second person that's addicted because not everyone pulls themselves out like you have and and recreates their life and the story that they won what was that recovery sobriety journey like in terms of where their relapses how long was it were you always in a rehab were you at home weaning off

the drugs so I did I've had eight rehab admissions over the course of my addiction and the first one I was about 24 and I was like like I'm not you guys are gross you know and I heard all these stories about all of this stuff and all these people doing all of that all of that wild stuff and I was like I'm just a young girl too much money you guys got no idea and I was warned that if I went back out my life would turn to shit and it did but the last time that I went to rehab something changed for me and I just knew that I needed to hand over my life and my will to somebody else because my decision making and my best thinking got me to where it got me so I just needed to accept that I had no capabilities of making any good choices for myself and I just

handed it over to the rehab and I did what I was told essentially and that was that I needed to just take my time and go slow and I did I didn't have a phone for a really long time I didn't have social media for a really long time because I just didn't have that space between thought and action like for a really long time I was like yes going to see somebody who's using drugs seems like a really great idea. And I would believe that I can do it. I've got this, but no, I did not have anything. So it just was a matter of taking my time and finding the right people to help me in my journey and, and trusting them with my life until I could be trusted with my life myself. Kate, how did it impact your friendships?

Oh God, I didn't have any friends by the time, you know, either the true friends that I had over the course of my life I'd pushed away because I was a shit person to be around and I didn't want them to see me in that way and the people that I used with there were a lot of people that were just like me you know just people that had ended up there by chance but I couldn't continue those friendships because it wasn't safe for me so I literally cut my life you know I left the day that I went to Melbourne to go to rehab you know I left I packed up my house with what little possessions I had left, gave them to my mom, changed my phone number, deleted my iCloud account so I couldn't retract anybody and started again. Is it an everyday battle? As someone that was so

addicted, is there ever a time that comes where you don't consciously think about it anymore or you can get on with your life without having to say to yourself, you're good, you've got this, or is it something that you never fully 100% heal from? Well, I haven't thought that drugs and alcohol were a good idea or a solution to my life for a really long time and I don't get up in the morning and think, fuck, I'd like to use drugs today. But I do respect my addiction and I know that I'm only a couple, I'm always only a couple of shit decisions and mistakes away

from picking up and that's my responsibility and I take that really seriously. It might not have been my fault or my choice to be an addict, but I'm in recovery and it's certainly 100% my choice and my responsibility to stay clean. So yeah, I do a lot of things to maintain my sobriety so I don't end up back in a spot where I think that drugs is the solution. Can you talk us through a little bit around what were the steps that you implemented? I know you said you blocked people and you were in the facility.

How long were you in the facility for and what was kind of like the rules? when you say you handed your life over to somebody else to make the decisions for you, what were those decisions? So I'm a hopeless love addict too. So that was a big part of my recovery. Like not no men was a big one. No, I needed time to know because sickness attracts sickness in relationships. So anyone that I was going to be in any kind of relationship probably wasn't that great either. Couldn't do well. So yeah, look, there was obviously that I didn't have social media you know I was really selective about who I spent time with the places that I went all that kind of stuff like I obviously wasn't going into bars or anything like that but yeah I just I just

ran everything by somebody a trusted person and I know that sounds crazy but as I said I just couldn't trust myself but I was in the rehab I was in a lockdown hospital for six weeks and then I was in like a transition house for about a year maybe a bit more and then I became a support worker in the rehab. So then I was sort of like a lead tenant and helped look after the new people that came in, I think. So all up, I was in treatment for a little over two years. If you're someone who can identify that you are an addict, whether it's drugs or alcohol or whatever it is that the thing that someone is addicted to, are you always an addict? Even if you're in recovery, is that always something that you will have a weakness to potentially

fall back into if you are not making the conscious decisions and choices around your life yeah I believe so I mean some people don't like to identify as an addict after they get clean and that's personal choice but I'm an addict in recovery and that's just how I am I'll always be an addict and I have to watch as I said to you like I when I put down the drugs there was a whole range of other behaviors that I did addictively and it was like whack-a-mole you know it was like I'd get one under control and I'd have to knock the other one down. And that ranges from all the really scary ones like drugs, alcohol, even gambling, you know, to relationships, to shopping.

Like social media destroys my life. You know, I cannot do it manageably. I just can't, which is a really hard one because it has to be a part of my life, you know what I mean? Do you think you were always that way or do you think this addiction to everything else in your life is a by-product of being addicted to drugs and alcohol? When I look back over my life, as I said, I did everything addictively forever.

Even as a kid? Even as a kid. By the age of five, I was lying and stealing and eating food in secret in a really shameful, strange way, like for no real reason. And well, there was a reason and I didn't know it at the time, but it was I always was looking for something outside of myself to help self-regulate and soothe the way that I felt. And it started with food and it progressed to boys, to money,

to all the things over the years. You now are in a lovely relationship and you're a mum. How did you meet your partner? I met my partner online. So did I. Don't worry. The only people I've ever dated have been online. Well, I just did.

I'd been in a really inappropriate quick relationship that was not well nor healthy. and again I just attracted the old same old Kate stuff except I behaved I recognized it and I got out of it but it left me like hurting so I was like get online I was online I'll just try some dating sites I was online for a day it wigged me out but I somehow ended up with this guy's number and it just happened quick mover I was on there for 10 years and you do it for 24 hours no I was like when there was too much I was like this is too many I don't know what to do here and I panicked You're like, I just need one.

I just picked one. Just made me stop feeling shit about this other guy. And it turned out he was pretty good. So, you know, and that was just before COVID and, yeah, we just clicked and hit it off and I guess COVID fast-tracked our relationship as far as getting to know one another because it was like either we're going to hang out a lot or this is probably not going to work out.

What was it like when you meet someone new and you have to talk about the person that you were? you've almost lived these two lives now you're like this is the person I am and this is the person I was how do people receive that and in particular how did your partner receive that information um it's a tricky one because you don't want to go too far down a relationship starting a relationship and go oh yeah by the way all of these things that seems a bit unfair you also don't want to open with it no that's not a good I'm okay now but I also have the potential to be a crazy drug addict really it's up to you yeah but yeah it I gave him because

obviously he was like he drank which was well he still does drink which was an interesting one for me I had to say I don't drink and these are the reasons why I didn't go into the depths of it to start with and I guess as we got to know each other and things became more serious I had to say hey this is why I don't drink and these are the places that drinking can take me and yeah we just muddled our way through it and now he knows all of it does it bother you now when he drinks um it can do it doesn't bother me when he drinks necessarily and he's one of those people that i don't understand in the world that can come home and have one beer and be done with it like i don't get people that can do that but he's normal like that but it can like if we're like around christmas

time and those times where there's lots of drinking and lots of socializing and lots of it does get tiring but we've just had to talk about that over the years and find a compromise to what works and I haven't so he doesn't feel like he's had to compromise who he is and I haven't had to compromise who I am. Kate how has motherhood changed you? I feel like everybody goes through these massive transitions when they become a mum but I can only imagine when you are juggling and have juggled such a huge self-discovery self-identity shift like there's already been so many changes that it would impact you in ways that maybe it doesn't impact everyone I thought I'd missed the chance to be a mum I made one of the only sane good choices that I made through

my using was I made sure there was absolutely no way I was going to get pregnant because I didn't want to bring a little person into my chaos like I felt really and I know it happens and I'm not judging anybody for that but for me it just was a really important thing that I destroyed my own life but nobody else's well not not somebody that I was responsible for anyway yeah yeah but yeah look he's been he's taught me so much I think it's the first time I've ever loved somebody more than myself addicts are notoriously really selfish people and he's taught me so much about myself and also shown me how far I've come like I get up every morning and show up for this little person and it makes me emotional to say it still, but like I show up

for this little person really well every day, you know what I mean? I don't make mistakes. All mums make mistakes. There's no I'm not perfect, but, yeah, he's changed my life in more ways than I think I'll ever understand. And also I think the hardest one, I lost my mum when I was 13 weeks pregnant with my son. I'm so sorry.

I think I understand her pain more than I ever, ever could have, I think. is I think the things that she did and the things she went through and the extremes that she went through. And two, I understand on a much deeper level. Makes you appreciate them a lot more when you're in that position and you know what you would do for your child. Oh my God. I just, I understand her on a whole other level. This could be a really naive, stupid question, but does that level of drug abuse have any effect on fertility? Obviously your health overall it does but is there any link directly between fertility it wasn't for me no I've got polycystic ovarian syndrome that was the only thing that was going to affect my fertility and I was in

I was the healthiest and fittest I'd ever been in a normal way when I got pregnant and I think but look I also know how lucky I am at the other end of addiction like I've I have come out relatively unscathed with my health and my physical body obviously there was plenty of trauma that I had to muddle my way through but like on the medically like I came out really lucky. What is something that you would like people to understand about addiction who either may have judgment towards people who are addicts or may not you know may listen to this and think oh this could never happen to me or could never happen to people that I associate with what would be the thing that you think most people would find surprising about addiction? Well that's just simply not true like

that's a really naive way of thinking like you know when you see an addict in the street everyone's got a story nobody sat up in kindergarten put their hand up when the teacher said what do you want to be when you grow up no one ever said i want to be a hopeless junkie and destroy mine and everybody's life so no one ever did that you know what i mean there was a story and there's a reason that they're there and you don't know that so treat them like you would how you'd want your daughter or your son or your mom or your relative or your best friend to be treated if they were in that position you know they're just people that are hurting and that need help doesn't mean that their behaviors are acceptable or excusable or any of that stuff but you know there's underneath all

of that ugliness and shit is is normally just a person in a in a shit ton of pain what would you say to someone now what advice would you give to someone that might be in a really dark time or starting to or be in the the depths of addiction as long as your two feet are on the ground there's always hope it doesn't matter how far down the hole you go or how many mistakes or how much shit you've lost or whatever you've done like it's never too late and there's always hope and there is help find your people i think the best thing rehab and all that was great for me but finding a community of people they say back to that study that they did with the rat they say the opposite of addiction is connection yeah and the best thing I did was find a community of people

that got me didn't judge me that I could talk about who I was and what I was going through and what was going through my crazy brain and they just met me with love and acceptance so find your people that you can talk to and that get you and you you know that's the first step. Kate can you tell us what role music plays in your life now after all these years and everything that you've been through what impact does it still have for you so it fills my cup these days I when I came out of you know addiction it was like you're gonna get back into music I was like absolutely fucking not like I hate that don't even talk to me about music ever again and I really hated it when I first came out and then I just started I didn't want to know about it I just started to do

it for me and you know for fun and for joy and I realized how much I love it and I realized that I'm pretty good at it which only took me 15 years and a whole lot of shit to come to realize but you know and it brings other people joy too so I do it when I can however I can I don't I don't have any great desires to change the world or to you know sell number one singles I don't live for that anymore other things drive me now and work around addiction and being able to help people in that space is really important to me these days it makes it all worth something I guess but yeah music just brings me joy in whatever capacity I get to do it. Do you feel like you've reached a place where you truly feel like you can be happy in the life that you've created for yourself now?

Yeah I do for the most part you know life is life and life is shit sometimes and everybody goes through times that hurt and life throws curveballs and and all of that kind of stuff but for the most part I wake up every day happy with who I am happy with my life you know I don't feel the need to run away from my life and who I am anymore and you know even when the shit does come up in my life I feel like I manage it with dignity and grace to the best of my ability and and I couldn't from a hopeless junkie in the bathroom six and a half years ago like to be the person that I am now is is a miracle so I'm just grateful for my life thank you so much for sharing today because I can't fathom how hard that is to just be so open and raw about the lowest time in your life

and you have done so with such grace and with the purpose of helping other people and that's truly a remarkable thing so thank you for being so vulnerable and open oh thanks girls thanks for having me thank you Kate we will link all of the details and also your podcast in the show notes as well but genuinely thank you so much for coming and being a part of the podcast. Thanks.