Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA mea podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Mayor acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. Hello, out Louders, I'm
Speaker 2: in your ears today to bring you a very special
Speaker 2: episode of No Filter because this week I sat down
Speaker 2: with Jackie O and her best friend Gemma to talk
Speaker 2: about Jackie's addiction. It was about how she became addicted
Speaker 2: to pills and alcohol, what that addiction looked like from
Speaker 2: the inside, and also what it looked like from the outside,
Speaker 2: what everybody else was thinking because nobody knew, literally nobody knew,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to invite her best friend, Jemma O'Neil
Speaker 2: to sit down with us as well, because the first
Speaker 2: phone call jack made when she hit rock bottom, and
Speaker 2: the first person that she told was Gemma, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to understand how Jemma got her through it, how
Speaker 2: that friendship saved her life, and what we can all
Speaker 2: learn if we're struggling with addiction or if someone we
Speaker 2: love is struggling with addiction. I know that a lot
Speaker 2: of out louders have addiction in their lives somewhere. It's
Speaker 2: something that we have to grapple with and we also
Speaker 2: talk so much about friendship out loud. Anyway, I hope
Speaker 2: you enjoy this episode. Let us know what you think.
Speaker 1: You have to be quite calculated. You know, you might
Speaker 1: go out to dinner and then you're like, Okay, how
Speaker 1: many pills do I need? Where do I hide them?
Speaker 1: If someone says, oh, can I borrow your lipstick and
Speaker 1: they open your bag, you immediately panic, thinking, shit, are
Speaker 1: they going to see these pills in there?
Speaker 2: For mom and me, you're listening to no filter. I'm
Speaker 2: me a Friedman and it is pretty unusual for me
Speaker 2: to interview the same person twice within the space of
Speaker 2: a year. I don't think it's ever happened before. But
Speaker 2: the last time I sat down with Jackie O, one
Speaker 2: half of the most successful radio duo in Australian history,
Speaker 2: she had a secret not just from me, but from
Speaker 2: almost everyone in her life. Her friends, her colleagues, the
Speaker 2: men she'd begun dating after her divorce from the father
Speaker 2: of her daughter Kitty, even from her co host Kyle Sanderleans.
Speaker 2: Nobody knew that Jackie O was addicted to pills and
Speaker 2: alcohol and had been for years. The story they thought
Speaker 2: they knew is that she'd lost a whole lot of
Speaker 2: weight because she was on a zepic or because she'd
Speaker 2: had surgery. That's what the gossip site said, and that's
Speaker 2: how the rooms wet. But everyone missed the real story,
Speaker 2: which was so much bigger and deeper and more sad
Speaker 2: than you would expect from someone who, from the outside anyways,
Speaker 2: seemed so successful and so powerful and so glamorous. When
Speaker 2: I last spoke to Jackie, it was a great conversation.
Speaker 2: She was her usual down to earth self, deprecating, no bullshit,
Speaker 2: funny self, despite having just signed a new ten year
Speaker 2: contract for her radio show with Kyle that was worth
Speaker 2: a reported one hundred million dollars. We spoke about that
Speaker 2: on that episode, and we spoke about Kyle. But today
Speaker 2: we're not talking about those things, not about money, not
Speaker 2: about Kyle. Today we're talking about the secret that Jackie
Speaker 2: has only just shared with the world in her memoir
Speaker 2: called Suitably The Whole Truth. And today she also has
Speaker 2: someone sitting beside her in the studio because Jemma O'Neil
Speaker 2: is not only Jackie's best friend and her manager and
Speaker 2: her business partner, she's the one who Jackie called when
Speaker 2: she hit rock bottom. On the darkest day of her life,
Speaker 2: and to understand the story of Jackie's addiction and recovery
Speaker 2: from the inside. I knew that I wanted to hear
Speaker 2: Jemma's point of view as well. So let's jump in.
Speaker 2: I should start at the beginning, but I want to
Speaker 2: start in the middle, and I want to get my
Speaker 2: timing right. There was a weekend in I think twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two where there is a series of phone calls
Speaker 2: that changed your life, Jack, and then your life Gemma.
Speaker 2: The first phone call came to you, Jack on a
Speaker 2: Sunday morning from someone telling you that your life had
Speaker 2: changed in a big way. Can you tell me about
Speaker 2: where you were when that phone call arrived, like physically,
Speaker 2: how are you feeling?
Speaker 1: What were you doing? I think it was just a
Speaker 1: normal Sunday morning.
Speaker 2: Which was what for you at that time.
Speaker 1: So Gemma had been around the night before with another
Speaker 1: friend of ours, Kim, and so we'd been drinking and
Speaker 1: having a great girls night, and I think I would
Speaker 1: have finished up around two am, and then I think
Speaker 1: around the time that I have no idea what time
Speaker 1: I got up the next day actually, and it was
Speaker 1: just probably me, you know, eating, drinking, watching TV and
Speaker 1: then I got a phone call from the person who
Speaker 1: was supplying me with the painkillers, the only person who
Speaker 1: has ever done that. I've never been able to access
Speaker 1: them before like that, and that person called me to
Speaker 1: say that they couldn't do it anymore because they had
Speaker 1: been busted. I was. I took the call outside and
Speaker 1: I just remember thinking, Oh my god, this is it.
Speaker 1: This is the moment I feared. What am I going
Speaker 1: to do? You know, all these thoughts run through your
Speaker 1: head of like oh shit, now what like you know,
Speaker 1: how am I going to get out of this? How
Speaker 1: am I going to taper off this kind of amount
Speaker 1: that I'm taking of medication?
Speaker 2: How long had you been taking it for?
Speaker 1: Well, I would say it was the beginning of COVID
Speaker 1: was when it got really bad. So it originally started
Speaker 1: about fifteen years prior when I had been prescribed a
Speaker 1: really strong painkiller and don't which people know in Australia
Speaker 1: is like oxy content in.
Speaker 2: The strongest painkiller. I think that you cand it. It's no,
Speaker 2: you can't get it over counters. It's usually you get
Speaker 2: prescribed it after an operation or you had it for endometriotus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I had it for the endometriosis. They'd given
Speaker 1: me other painkillers that weren't very effective, and it was
Speaker 1: really severe pain at the time. And yeah, it's very
Speaker 1: difficult to get end on rightly, so in this country,
Speaker 1: and so that's where it started. And then I think
Speaker 1: because you couldn't even access something like that, you couldn't
Speaker 1: just even go doctor shopping for it, because doctors are
Speaker 1: extremely aware that there are people out there like me
Speaker 1: who are abusing it, and so can.
Speaker 2: You explain doctor shopping. One of the things I found
Speaker 2: most interesting in your book was getting inside addiction, and
Speaker 2: one of the things that came across so much was
Speaker 2: how time consuming. It is.
Speaker 1: Time consuming so time like.
Speaker 2: There's the money, there's all of those things, but it like,
Speaker 2: what was the process of getting the amount of drugs
Speaker 2: that you needed before you found this person who could
Speaker 2: supply it.
Speaker 1: Well, See, the thing is I got the intake increased
Speaker 1: because of the person I ran into and because I
Speaker 1: had access to it freely, it then increased tenfold very quickly.
Speaker 1: So originally when I was prescribed the end DOMEE, I
Speaker 1: really wasn't taking it to it. It was just one
Speaker 1: extra here and there. When I was a.
Speaker 3: Lot to treat pain, to just take the edge of
Speaker 3: Obviously it was originally to treat the pain, and then
Speaker 3: it became like, oh, I'm having a really shit day,
Speaker 3: I might take one of those because they give me
Speaker 3: a really nice feeling.
Speaker 1: And so doctor shopping for something like that is really awful.
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to tell you. The whole thing
Speaker 1: feels just dirty. And you're you know, you're lying, you
Speaker 1: know you're doing something wrong, and you're not stopping yourself
Speaker 1: and doing it. So you're famous.
Speaker 2: How do you doctor shop when you're Jackie O and
Speaker 2: you're that recognizable in waiting rooms? Yeah, by doctors, by receptionists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you go far and wide. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: You try not to go to a doctor surgery in
Speaker 1: the same suburb too, in the same because who knows
Speaker 1: if those people know each other, and we'll say, oh,
Speaker 1: Jackie O came into the doctor surgery today, and the
Speaker 1: other one goes, yeah, me too. You know, alarm bells
Speaker 1: would go off. So it's incredibly devious behavior.
Speaker 2: And what did you have to say to the doctors?
Speaker 1: Would I would tell the truth? But you know, it
Speaker 1: was it was as though I'd also said that story
Speaker 1: to the other doctor. So I was getting twice the
Speaker 1: amount I needed. So it wasn't that I was lying
Speaker 1: about the pain. I was telling them about the end
Speaker 1: of metriosis. And yeah, a lot of the time, every
Speaker 1: now and again, a doctor would go, I don't feel
Speaker 1: comfortable prescribing this.
Speaker 2: And did you feel so ashamed when that happened?
Speaker 1: I really did. Yeah, it was That was the worst
Speaker 1: part is the shame that comes with it.
Speaker 2: How do you end that conversation.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, okay, yeah, you just exactly. You just
Speaker 1: go okay, and they go, I'll prescribe you this instead.
Speaker 2: And one time because you became worried that there would
Speaker 2: be some central record. Yeah, so you knew you couldn't
Speaker 2: give a false name, so you gave a false birth date.
Speaker 2: When did that go wrong?
Speaker 1: I was just writing down whatever birthdate came to my mind.
Speaker 1: When they give you the form to go and sit
Speaker 1: down and write out your details. Gais a couple of numbers, Yeah,
Speaker 1: pick a couple of numbers. Any numbers doesn't matter. Actually
Speaker 1: it does matter when it's February. Because I wrote February thirty.
Speaker 1: I got busted. I went to the receptionist. She's typing
Speaker 1: it in she goes, wait, so your birthday is February thirty,
Speaker 1: and I no, she didn't even say February. She went
Speaker 1: the thirtieth of the second. So I didn't admit and
Speaker 1: I was like yeah, and oh god, again the shame,
Speaker 1: the shame, so oh that it didn't last very long
Speaker 1: the doctor shopping, because I actually just thought, this is,
Speaker 1: this is you got to stop like you're you're going
Speaker 1: to get in trouble here, you know, and you're also
Speaker 1: going to where does it end? You know? It will
Speaker 1: it will? You'll want more and more if you keep
Speaker 1: taking more than you should. So thankfully, I think due
Speaker 1: to that lack of access, it stopped me from having
Speaker 1: a full blown addiction back then, and so it didn't
Speaker 1: really this oh well that was let me think I
Speaker 1: would have been about It would have been maybe late twenties,
Speaker 1: early thirties, I think when the end on one happened.
Speaker 1: And again I wouldn't have called that an addiction. I
Speaker 1: think that was an abuse. It was abusing something and
Speaker 1: taking it a little bit recreationally, but not an addiction
Speaker 1: at that point, although obviously the addictive behavior was coming out,
Speaker 1: and so it wasn't until probably twenty nineteen, I think
Speaker 1: late twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. I had access to it
Speaker 1: and used it as a coping mech.
Speaker 2: Quite a few years later, and it's years in between.
Speaker 2: Were you doctor shopping all of that time?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, no, no, you did stop. I did,
Speaker 1: yeah shopping. It was almost like that was so much
Speaker 1: effort and so much embarrassment came with that, and humiliation
Speaker 1: because even sometimes when you were prescribed it, you could
Speaker 1: tell the doctor was almost looking at you like you were.
Speaker 1: I used to think to myself, God, he's looking at
Speaker 1: me like I'm a junkie, you know, And I thought,
Speaker 1: but you are a junkie right now in this situation,
Speaker 1: you are pretty much like I just thought. You know,
Speaker 1: it was too humiliating, and I thankfully stop that because
Speaker 1: I can't. Doctor shopping is incredibly time consuming.
Speaker 2: Is that when you started drinking more? No, not even effect.
Speaker 1: No, I didn't. Actually I never really had a problem
Speaker 1: with drinking. I think I would say, you know, I
Speaker 1: guess it depends how you define a problem with drinking.
Speaker 1: So I never really liked alcohol at all. Kitty was born,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly it was a lot was happening with
Speaker 1: my marriage, and then a child on top of that,
Speaker 1: and then we obviously refused any help. We didn't get
Speaker 1: anyone on board, so it was just Leah and I,
Speaker 1: which is fine, you know, it's absolutely manageable. And I
Speaker 1: think because the problems we were having, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it just felt like, oh, suddenly I was wanting a
Speaker 1: glass of wine as soon as she went to bed
Speaker 1: and so. But again, it wasn't that I was drinking
Speaker 1: too much during that period, but I absolutely did have
Speaker 1: one or two every single day for the next thirteen years,
Speaker 1: or not thirteen actually because I went to rehab when
Speaker 1: she was seven days a week, but seven days a week,
Speaker 1: and whilst I wasn't getting drunk when I was in rehab,
Speaker 1: and went in there thinking, oh, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: give up alcohol because I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 1: Once I started writing down my real life relationship to alcohol,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, if I haven't had one day for
Speaker 1: the last ten eleven years without a glass of wine,
Speaker 1: then maybe there is a problem there. I mean, you
Speaker 1: don't have to be getting drunk every night and waking
Speaker 1: up and drinking alcohol first thing in the morning to
Speaker 1: have a problem with alcohol. And I think that's how
Speaker 1: I always identified.
Speaker 2: It's like alcoholic adjacent, Yeah it is, or using it
Speaker 2: as a crutch.
Speaker 1: It's a dependency on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, when you got that phone call and
Speaker 2: you think about how long had that person been in
Speaker 2: your life who was supplying you with the pills?
Speaker 1: Pretty much as soon as I ran into them is
Speaker 1: when it started. So twenty nineteen I think that was.
Speaker 1: And how would it work?
Speaker 2: Would you like text them because I imagine they were
Speaker 2: not doing the right thing and you were not doing
Speaker 2: the right thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how.
Speaker 2: Did you actually do it? Because the risk of being
Speaker 2: caught for both of you and the stakes.
Speaker 1: For high Yeah, I didn't think about that. It's almost
Speaker 1: like I didn't even want to think.
Speaker 2: About that part because it wasn't like you weren't scoring
Speaker 2: heroine and you weren't think it was like these were
Speaker 2: just over the counter painkillers exactly.
Speaker 1: I thought, well, these are legal, so therefore it's not
Speaker 1: that big a deal. That's what I told myself.
Speaker 2: And did you feel shame when you spoke to this
Speaker 2: person and you kept saying, I need like did you
Speaker 2: get them by the box? Did you go and pick
Speaker 2: them up from their house?
Speaker 1: Like? No, I would I would meet them, and it
Speaker 1: was actually, yeah, so they I would meet them. I
Speaker 1: don't want to give away who this person is, but
Speaker 1: it's not It's not like this kind of dodgy drug
Speaker 1: deal in the middle. I'm not, you know, sitting in
Speaker 1: their car and exchanging It wasn't quite like that, but no,
Speaker 1: but it was like that.
Speaker 2: It just didn't but feel like that exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It wasn't like, you know, necessarily drug dealer type.
Speaker 2: It was yeh, a situation.
Speaker 1: It has a different situation when you.
Speaker 2: Think about that person, how do you feel about them?
Speaker 1: That's a good question actually, because I know my friend
Speaker 1: Gemma is angry with that person, but I am not
Speaker 1: because I put them in that situation and I know
Speaker 1: they gave me an extraordinarily large amount of medication. But
Speaker 1: I can't turn around at the end of it all
Speaker 1: and go, well, you shouldn't have done that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I don't know what I was lying to
Speaker 1: them as well. I mean, I wasn't saying it was
Speaker 1: all for me. I was saying, oh, yeah, I've got
Speaker 1: some people at work who need you know, still knocks
Speaker 1: as well because we all work crazy hours. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I was lying to them all.
Speaker 2: Slight different with the many packets of neuropan plus and
Speaker 2: painkillers that you needed though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was just because that's stuff you have
Speaker 1: to go to a doctor and get prescribed it, and
Speaker 1: you know that used to be an over the counter situation,
Speaker 1: and you know they could access it and they were like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: no worse, you know, I don't know do you have
Speaker 1: contact with them anymore? No? No, no, ever since that day,
Speaker 1: I think it was. That was it, you know, was done.
Speaker 2: The next fine call you made after that.
Speaker 1: One was to who Gemma my best friend?
Speaker 2: What did you say to her?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Well? I thought I needed someone who I knew could
Speaker 1: a help me and b wouldn't judge me and was
Speaker 1: close to me that I could trust. And Jemma knew
Speaker 1: everything about me except that you know, she was the
Speaker 1: one I would always talk to about any problem I
Speaker 1: had in life, and vice versa.
Speaker 2: Interestingly, in the book, you talk about your assistant who's
Speaker 2: been with you for ten years, Brett, who sounds amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and she knows everything about you, yes, including this. She's
Speaker 2: the one person or the other person besides the person
Speaker 2: who was supplying you with it, who did know and
Speaker 2: she would sometimes leave notes around the house because she
Speaker 2: would see all the empty blister packs, and she would
Speaker 2: witnessed you, you know, day and night, and she'd watched
Speaker 2: you deteriorate along with other people. Why didn't you call
Speaker 2: her first?
Speaker 1: I don't feel I want to burden her with something
Speaker 1: like that. I think with Britta and I, she is
Speaker 1: like a big We always laugh. She's my big sister
Speaker 1: because she's the protector, and she's the one that's always
Speaker 1: trying to will in those days help me and I.
Speaker 1: But she always has kept it professional.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: She's always very careful not to cross the line where
Speaker 1: we become best friends. And she's always mindful of that
Speaker 1: that there's a line like we don't cross. We're friends,
Speaker 1: we're like sisters, but also we're not hanging out socializing
Speaker 1: every single day. And I feel and so there has
Speaker 1: been a certain level of professionalism with brittan Ie and
Speaker 1: our relationship.
Speaker 2: That must have been a big deal for her to
Speaker 2: write those letters. Oh absolutely, How did you feel when
Speaker 2: you saw them, because that was the first time you'd
Speaker 2: had a mirror held up to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, I think when you're in and when you're
Speaker 1: in the middle of an addiction and someone does that
Speaker 1: to you, you don't sit there and go, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I feel so ashamed. I feel so this. Oh I
Speaker 1: really should get help. I can't believe she you just
Speaker 1: immediately don't think about that. Let's not think about that.
Speaker 1: It's just you just don't want denial, big denial. Yeah.
Speaker 2: After this short break, we hear from Gemma, who was
Speaker 2: on the other end of that phone call, and we
Speaker 2: find out what she did next. So you called Gemma
Speaker 2: because she's the closest person to you, and also she
Speaker 2: knows how to get shit done and sort shit out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which brings me to you, Jem and that weekend for
Speaker 2: you the night before when you'd been over at Jack's house,
Speaker 2: what did you notice about her and what had you
Speaker 2: noticed over what period of time leading up to that.
Speaker 5: I probably didn't notice much the night before, And in fact,
Speaker 5: we was saying this the other day. It was quite
Speaker 5: funny because I left earlier that night, which in nine sight,
Speaker 5: thank god I did, because I needed my wits about
Speaker 5: me the.
Speaker 1: Next day, it turned out.
Speaker 5: But I think I left it like nine or ten
Speaker 5: that that night before, And to be honest with you,
Speaker 5: there was nothing different that night as opposed to any
Speaker 5: other night that we would hang out or day we'd
Speaker 5: hang out. But the consistent thing that I saw was
Speaker 5: that there was a niggling feeling that something wasn't right.
Speaker 5: And I think that's why I got so upset when
Speaker 5: I found out, because I was angry at myself that
Speaker 5: I hadn't figured it out. But there was always an
Speaker 5: excuse that I thought, like, you know, whether it was
Speaker 5: Jack seemed really tired. Well, obviously, it turns out she
Speaker 5: was taking fourteen still knoxes a day, so of course
Speaker 5: she's going to be tired. But in my head, i'd
Speaker 5: see her be really sl tired, and I'd think, well,
Speaker 5: she does breakfast hours and she's exhausted, and you know, deniability. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And so there was always kind of a reason. Or
Speaker 5: I'd noticed that we'd go out for dinner and maybe
Speaker 5: we'd only had one or two glasses of wine and
Speaker 5: I'm obviously still fine, and Jack would seem like she
Speaker 5: was drunk, and I'd think, again, well she.
Speaker 1: You know, she doesn't get a lot of sleep.
Speaker 5: So there was always this kind of I had this
Speaker 5: justification in a way in my head, and I was
Speaker 5: at I was at her all the time, like I
Speaker 5: was saying, something's not right, and I think we should
Speaker 5: take you to the doctor.
Speaker 1: Well, during that time, I think about six weeks, maybe
Speaker 1: even eight weeks prior I genuinely had gotten sick, had COVID.
Speaker 1: Then I think it was like a lung or chest infection.
Speaker 1: I just don't know what it was, but it was
Speaker 1: constant coughing, being lethargic. And so I was sick for
Speaker 1: this very long period of time, which I know was
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was should be getting better, Yeah, because nothing
Speaker 5: was changing. I thought something's not right here. But yeah,
Speaker 5: I guess I noticed small things, but it never ever
Speaker 5: occurred to me that it would be.
Speaker 1: What it was. But also I was with Jack all.
Speaker 5: The time, and she was very very good at hiding it,
Speaker 5: like there was no signs.
Speaker 2: Add It's a crafty, aren't they?
Speaker 1: One hundred percent? Yeah?
Speaker 2: How hard is that?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: How calculated do you have to be?
Speaker 1: You have to be quite calculated. You have to you know,
Speaker 1: you might go out to dinner and then you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how many pills do I need? Where do I hide them?
Speaker 1: If someone says, oh, can I borrow your lipstick? And
Speaker 1: they open your bag, you immediately panic, thinking, shit, are
Speaker 1: they going to see these pills in there? You know,
Speaker 1: so you have to hide them in the little back
Speaker 1: pocket and then put tissues on top of it in
Speaker 1: case someone goes to that back pocket and goes, oh,
Speaker 1: I've lost my button? Can I put it in your
Speaker 1: back pocket? Then you have to take the pills, and
Speaker 1: you have to go to the bathroom, and you know,
Speaker 1: figure out if somebody in here are they going to
Speaker 1: look at me at the basin with the water you
Speaker 1: just and then just the covering up of the actual
Speaker 1: the effect, though, that isn't hard because what happened was
Speaker 1: initially when in twenty nineteen, when I had started taking
Speaker 1: a still Knox and some painkillers. I guess, like any drug,
Speaker 1: they had a maximum effect and then the tolerance that
Speaker 1: gets built up happens very very quickly, and so you're
Speaker 1: taking more and more. But actually, if I'm really honest,
Speaker 1: I would say the last year of my addiction, I
Speaker 1: felt nothing, and I kept saying to myself, but why
Speaker 1: are you continuing to take it? Then, like, if you're
Speaker 1: not feeling anything anymore and it's not giving you anything,
Speaker 1: why are you taking it? And I think I just
Speaker 1: kept living in hope that it would give me some
Speaker 1: sort of high. And the other thing was that I
Speaker 1: didn't want to. I just didn't know how to really
Speaker 1: come off it, because I knew on the day I
Speaker 1: didn't have Kitty, I was taking that usual amount the
Speaker 1: days I had Kitty, when I when I would take
Speaker 1: like half a pill here and there, it was just
Speaker 1: trying desperately to level me out. And those that feeling
Speaker 1: was so awful that I just didn't want to experience that.
Speaker 1: Either I don't know, I just keep going back to
Speaker 1: this denial of like I don't even know what was
Speaker 1: going on with me there, but it really genuinely was
Speaker 1: hardly having an effect at all. So when you ask
Speaker 1: how difficult is it to cover all of that up,
Speaker 1: that part isn't wasn't even super high functioning that you know,
Speaker 1: It's just not even it's pointless even continuing.
Speaker 5: So the next day that was interesting because then when
Speaker 5: when things did transfire, all these secrecy like elements would
Speaker 5: come out so and it would all make sense. It'd
Speaker 5: be like, oh, so is that why every time we'd
Speaker 5: go out you were always adamant that your handbag, like
Speaker 5: no one could touch your handbag or Yeah, you'd always
Speaker 5: go to the bathroom every time the food was put down.
Speaker 5: And I was always perplexed, like.
Speaker 2: Reverse Bolima, because I was bullimic when I was in
Speaker 2: my early twenties and I'm thinking about all that strategized
Speaker 2: and be like, Okay, so where will I be, where's
Speaker 2: the bathroom, who's going to be in there? What can
Speaker 2: I do? I need to do like all the steps
Speaker 2: that you need to do to cover it up. And
Speaker 2: it's like no one would have guessed when you go
Speaker 2: to the bathroom always before the food comes, because you've.
Speaker 1: Got to have it. If I've done it after, people
Speaker 1: might have gone hang on a second. And that's the thing.
Speaker 1: If anyone gets in the way of your plan. Yes,
Speaker 1: like the yeah, just ruin my whole night, Like you know, it's.
Speaker 2: I still have anxiety dreams about having binged and being
Speaker 2: not able to throw up. I still have those anxiety
Speaker 2: dreams now because it's such a it's so ingrained. Yeah
Speaker 2: you had Blima, Yeah, and it's it's well, it's like
Speaker 2: any it's like an addictions and it's having to learn
Speaker 2: and yeah, having to learn what it's about because it's
Speaker 2: not about the food or the alcohol or the pills
Speaker 2: or whatever, it's about why you're using it. What's interesting
Speaker 2: to me is reading your book and the conversations is
Speaker 2: that no one had any idea, like no, like it
Speaker 2: was the last thing. And I'm interested in what that
Speaker 2: says about you and what everyone thinks about you. And
Speaker 2: it made me think that everyone must think that you're
Speaker 2: very dependable, responsible, grounded, like all of those things that
Speaker 2: you wouldn't connect with addiction.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the main reason is that because I
Speaker 1: don't do any kind of party drugs and really never have,
Speaker 1: and I think I'm probably one of the only people
Speaker 1: and I'm not even just talking about the entertainment or
Speaker 1: I'm talking just in Sydney, these eastern suburbs for a start.
Speaker 1: I reckon I'm one of the very rare people who
Speaker 1: have never even tried coke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh I have tried it. But I feel that
Speaker 2: way too, Like you can swim in that circle and
Speaker 2: it's like you realize you're the only one left at
Speaker 2: the table when everybody else has gone to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really everybody there, I know, I know, And so
Speaker 1: I think everyone always put me in that basket of oh,
Speaker 1: she just doesn't do drugs at all, And so I
Speaker 1: think that was if anyone even had a minuscule thought
Speaker 1: of that, they'd be like, oh, no, she would never
Speaker 1: be doing that because she doesn't do This is also.
Speaker 2: Part of it that people don't think of prescription medication
Speaker 2: as being addictive or something that people get addicted to, Like.
Speaker 1: I think, I know that. I was so confused about
Speaker 1: it when I heard Matthew Perry had gotten addicted to painkillers.
Speaker 1: I remember that. I remember thinking, who gets addicted to
Speaker 1: pain killers? But I just thought they were by that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think why hell? You know, it was so bad.
Speaker 2: It was also hearing that you take sleeping pills. It's
Speaker 2: like what everyone always asks you is how do you
Speaker 2: get up in the morning so early be so tired?
Speaker 2: It's like, why would you be taking sleeping pills?
Speaker 1: Good question, Yeah, if you.
Speaker 2: Would be addicted to anything. Yeah, And probably that's why
Speaker 2: the people around you didn't pick it either, because it's
Speaker 2: quite easy to you know, we can all pick the
Speaker 2: signs of someone who's who's on appers and who's high.
Speaker 2: But when someone's just a bit tired or a bit
Speaker 2: and as you say, when you're just taking it to
Speaker 2: be normal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that was what I was perplexed by
Speaker 5: that day when they're all, you know, unraveled, because I
Speaker 5: remember sitting and going.
Speaker 1: I can I just say when I went into rehab,
Speaker 1: I was the only person that was addicted to sleep.
Speaker 1: Everyone went because it's ambient over there, and they're like ambient.
Speaker 2: Like why people get addicted to stimulants?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do. It was like I mean when I
Speaker 1: told them in rehab that it was what I was taking.
Speaker 1: So they call it Thailand Ole three over there, and
Speaker 1: obviously people are in there mostly for meth fentanyl, alcohol.
Speaker 1: They're like the three big ones. And I was the
Speaker 1: only one in there for Thailand. They literally looked at
Speaker 1: me like, Assie, white girl, she's addicted to Thailand. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is so lame. It's so suburban, it's so subban.
Speaker 2: That's often what people say about the things that women
Speaker 2: get addicted to is because women have caring responsibilities with it.
Speaker 2: It's for children or partners or parents, whatever. They're more
Speaker 2: likely to get addicted to things that enable them to function,
Speaker 2: so things like gambling, things like food, things like prescription medications.
Speaker 1: It's something you can still function, but it's not you know,
Speaker 1: you don't feel like you're going off the rails hardcore
Speaker 1: with your addiction, which is really, really is not the case.
Speaker 1: And I think that's my point in the book. When
Speaker 1: I first got in there, I felt that way too.
Speaker 1: It's like, hang on, I've got the least scary addiction
Speaker 1: in here, and everyone's looking at me like really, like
Speaker 1: you're in rehab for that. But yeah, absolutely, the problem
Speaker 1: I have is the same as the person next to me.
Speaker 1: He's doing Heroin. We both have the same problem, which
Speaker 1: is we're using that as a way to escape something else,
Speaker 1: and we need to address what that is.
Speaker 2: You're sitting here now talking very calmly about it.
Speaker 1: What was that.
Speaker 2: Phone call like from your point of view, Jim, when
Speaker 2: she called you, You're in the car driving out to
Speaker 2: the country. Yeah, on a lovely sunday.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was.
Speaker 5: And so she sounded that quite hysterical and was almost hyperventilating.
Speaker 5: So I knew it was bad, whatever it was, And
Speaker 5: I pulled over because I thought I can't be driving,
Speaker 5: like I kind of braced myself. I could tell the
Speaker 5: severity very quickly, and maybe I did. Actually, yeah, I
Speaker 5: thought something had happened, yeah to someone that we know.
Speaker 5: And then she managed to get out the words, because
Speaker 5: I was saying, just tell me whatever it is to
Speaker 5: say it, just say it. And she managed to kind
Speaker 5: of spit out the words in between the sobs of
Speaker 5: I've done something really stupid. That's all she kept saying.
Speaker 5: And I still was like, that mean, I said what,
Speaker 5: And then she eventually got out the words of I've
Speaker 5: been taking pills. And that's all she said to me
Speaker 5: was I've been taking pills. And immediately everything was like
Speaker 5: the penny dropped for me.
Speaker 2: I was like, so you didn't think she meant I've
Speaker 2: been taking pills this morning or last night. You knew straightaway.
Speaker 5: I figured it was like you know that domino effect.
Speaker 5: I just figured the whole sequence of everything out and
Speaker 5: it all made sense. And then I think he said,
Speaker 5: and the person I was getting them from has just
Speaker 5: been busted, and I don't know what to do. And
Speaker 5: I've never ever heard Jack in that state before, and
Speaker 5: so all I said was, I said, just just sit tight,
Speaker 5: I'll be there. I'll be there in two hours. And
Speaker 5: I turned around and I drove straight back.
Speaker 2: Where are you going south?
Speaker 5: I was going down to the Southern Highlands south of Sydney,
Speaker 5: So I was pretty much close to where I was going,
Speaker 5: and so I turned around and.
Speaker 2: Drove the Bane of Plans.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but I.
Speaker 5: Didn't know what the pills were or how many she
Speaker 5: was taking. I didn't know any of that. But I
Speaker 5: just had a gut feeling that it wasn't going to
Speaker 5: be like I'm taking one pill here and there. I
Speaker 5: just had this innate feeling that it was quite severe.
Speaker 5: And so, you know, what did you do in the
Speaker 5: car on the way home?
Speaker 2: I mean, on the way back to Jack.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I've never asked that.
Speaker 5: Actually, well, no, you do know I called That's what
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know know that. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I actually didn't do it. Did it take you
Speaker 1: before you decided to call Betty?
Speaker 5: About an hour?
Speaker 2: Some people are good in a crisis. I'm really good
Speaker 2: in a crisis, as long as the crisis isn't happening
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It really focused my thoughts. Maybe I know exactly what
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm a very ill po Yeah, I've always been
Speaker 5: like that. I don't know why, but I have that too,
Speaker 5: And so I sat with it, and I just sat
Speaker 5: with my own thoughts for the first hour. Of driving,
Speaker 5: and I think I was also trying to piece some
Speaker 5: things together in my head. I was like, oh, she
Speaker 5: you know, she's probably been doing it. I was trying to,
Speaker 5: you know, figure out the timeline, I guess, and then
Speaker 5: I started to think, Okay, let's prepare for all situations here,
Speaker 5: because that's my nature. I'm a planner. And so I thought,
Speaker 5: if it is an addiction, and if it has been
Speaker 5: going on for a while, then the fact that she's
Speaker 5: told me, I need to act quickly. Like I knew
Speaker 5: there were certain things and I've had some experience. I've
Speaker 5: been around other people that have had addiction and successfully
Speaker 5: overcome them, and so I knew that if it was that,
Speaker 5: I needed to be prepared and I need to act immediately.
Speaker 5: So I kind of started thinking, well, if it's that,
Speaker 5: this is what we'll do. And if it's not that,
Speaker 5: you know, this is what we'll do. And I started
Speaker 5: putting scenarios in my head to prepare for the worst
Speaker 5: case scenario, which is what I did think it was.
Speaker 5: I thought, well, I'm going to find out if I
Speaker 5: can even get her in somewhere. And I also never
Speaker 5: contemplated it being in Australia for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: First of all, I just.
Speaker 5: Thought that it would be a media circus and if
Speaker 5: she was genuinely unwell, as her friend, selfishly, I wanted
Speaker 5: her to get better, and so I thought if it's
Speaker 5: in Australia, she won't be able to do that, just
Speaker 5: because the chances are too high that it'll get out.
Speaker 5: And I also thought she'd probably if it did get out,
Speaker 5: then she'd probably use it as an excuse to say
Speaker 5: I can't stay here anymore. And so I wanted to
Speaker 5: eliminate all options of her being able to not get
Speaker 5: successful treatment. I did have friends who had gone to
Speaker 5: Betty Ford. I lived in America for quite a long time,
Speaker 5: and so I knew that their program was a legitimate
Speaker 5: program and that I'd seen other people recover very successfully.
Speaker 2: When I heard the audio of you sang it on
Speaker 2: the show about Betty Ford, I was like, Betty fool,
Speaker 2: that's so retro. Yeah, I didn't even know it was
Speaker 2: kind of still around.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The Betty Ford Center was founded in nineteen eighty two
Speaker 4: by former First Lady Betty Ford. After admissions, you'll be
Speaker 4: escorted to the medical and detoxification unit.
Speaker 1: In the medical unit, you'll be evaluated by our team
Speaker 1: of positions, and it will be determined when it's appropriate
Speaker 1: to move you over to one of the residential halls.
Speaker 4: Our medical staff is here twenty four to seven to
Speaker 4: make you as comfortable as possible.
Speaker 2: Like, surely there are more modern ones, more fancy ones,
Speaker 2: more upgraded worries, And why did you choose that?
Speaker 5: Because I had experience with other people going there, and
Speaker 5: I knew from the other people that had gone there
Speaker 5: that it wasn't a fancy one and that it wasn't
Speaker 5: a day spa situation.
Speaker 1: It was doing the work.
Speaker 5: It was a real program, and so I think it
Speaker 5: was just because I knew it, I thought, well, that's
Speaker 5: my default. I'm just going to go there. And so
Speaker 5: I called them when I was about thirty minutes out
Speaker 5: from arriving at Jack's, and I said to them, I
Speaker 5: have a friend who's just admitted this to me. I
Speaker 5: don't know the severity of the situation, but I wanted
Speaker 5: to know, do you have any spots available? And I
Speaker 5: also know it's quite hard to get spots in there,
Speaker 5: just because they have a wait list and you know,
Speaker 5: And the lady said to me, we have one spot available,
Speaker 5: and it's available from this Sunday, and I said I'll
Speaker 5: take it.
Speaker 2: And so so it was a week out.
Speaker 5: It was a week out, yeah, and I said I'll
Speaker 5: take it. And I said, I'll confirm. I'll call you
Speaker 5: back and confirm it in a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: He's all my details.
Speaker 2: How much does it cost?
Speaker 1: I can't it's about like thirty eight forty yeah, for
Speaker 1: the month.
Speaker 5: For the month.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you got to Jack's house. Yeah, what did
Speaker 2: you discover? What state was she in?
Speaker 1: She was not in a great state.
Speaker 2: I never driving.
Speaker 1: Not your best day, Yeah, definitely not.
Speaker 5: I never really like reliving it because every time we
Speaker 5: do it makes it really upset.
Speaker 1: But I'll do my best.
Speaker 5: I think it was just very It just broke my
Speaker 5: heart to see her like that. To see anyone like
Speaker 5: that is very confronting because she just was so lost
Speaker 5: and so empty and broken. And I think because she
Speaker 5: finally said it, she was letting all the emotion out,
Speaker 5: I imagine, and so she was very It was like
Speaker 5: she was almost like a child in that moment, Like
Speaker 5: it felt like she was a child that was desperate
Speaker 5: to be rescued and she was, you know, struggling to breathe.
Speaker 5: We had to do a few breathing exercises, and she
Speaker 5: was having panic, like panic attacks and things. So but
Speaker 5: it was also her you know, rock bottom moment, so
Speaker 5: to speak, because had she not got the earlier phone call,
Speaker 5: we wouldn't have been in that position. And so I
Speaker 5: was able to get pretty much everything out of her
Speaker 5: straight away, Like you didn't hold it a lot. I
Speaker 5: think she was like, well, it's done now, so I
Speaker 5: may as well admit to everything. And so that's when
Speaker 5: I said, what are the pills? How often are you
Speaker 5: taking them? And I was very shocked by the amount
Speaker 5: because in my head, I'm thinking that's close to forty
Speaker 5: pills a day in total that you're taking. And so
Speaker 5: but i'd like to think I don't know if this
Speaker 5: was the case, but I'd like to think I never
Speaker 5: once judged. I never once. All I did was I
Speaker 5: wanted her to feel I wanted her to feel my compassion,
Speaker 5: and I wanted her to feel nurtured, and I wanted
Speaker 5: her to feel safe. And that was the primary thing
Speaker 5: for me, was to make her know she was in
Speaker 5: a safe space and that I was going to make
Speaker 5: sure she was okay. And I think because hopefully she
Speaker 5: felt that she was able to really let everything out.
Speaker 2: Yeahhack, the two hours between when you call jem and
Speaker 2: when she arrived at your house, what were they like
Speaker 2: for you? What did you do in those two hours?
Speaker 1: I feel like that was a bit of a blur,
Speaker 1: to be honest. I think it was part shock, part relief, terrified.
Speaker 1: I think it was all those three things. You know,
Speaker 1: when you let the steam out finally of the pressure cooker,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, okay, it's out there. So there
Speaker 1: was that, and that was There was relief in that
Speaker 1: for sure, but it was also what does this mean? Now?
Speaker 1: What does this mean for me? Where do I What
Speaker 1: is Jema going to say? What am I gonna have
Speaker 1: to do? I actually didn't think she'd say rehab, So
Speaker 1: I don't know why I didn't think that, but I thought, oh, no,
Speaker 1: we're fine. I've got enough to taper off. We're all good.
Speaker 2: After the short break, Gemma makes a plan in the
Speaker 2: way that only best friends can, and Jackie has to
Speaker 2: share the truth with her ex husband Lee and her
Speaker 2: work husband Kyle. Stay with us, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2: So your plan, because you had about two weeks of
Speaker 2: stash to taper off, and you knew it was going
Speaker 2: to be tricky. Yeah, but your hand had been forced.
Speaker 2: So that was your plan.
Speaker 1: That was my plan.
Speaker 3: Yeap.
Speaker 2: What did Jim think of that plan?
Speaker 1: Terrible? Because she said to me rightly, so no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that won't work. And I said, yeah, it will, I said,
Speaker 1: because I have no one to get this stuff off,
Speaker 1: so I have no choice now, and she goes, no,
Speaker 1: you will find a way to get it. And I
Speaker 1: know that you will unless you fix the actual.
Speaker 2: Problem or replace it with someone that's something else. That's right, Yes,
Speaker 2: And I would have because you understood addiction, Yeah, as you.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 2: Did you think of yourself as an addict yet or that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, I knew obviously I was an addict. What did you? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't think you did based on that.
Speaker 1: Sorry, yeah, I didn't. I knew I was an addict,
Speaker 1: but I didn't understand what an addict was, right. So
Speaker 1: I when I say I didn't understand what an addict was,
Speaker 1: I just meant I had become addicted to something, but
Speaker 1: I could easily just taper off and stop. And I
Speaker 1: didn't understand that addiction is so much more than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, like in some people, I'm addicted to coffee
Speaker 2: and I'm addicted to work. It's like it's a different thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, addicts can be really hard to reason with. And
Speaker 2: something that we haven't really touched on is the duality
Speaker 2: of your friendship between friends but also your Jack's manager, agent, manager, both. Yeah, personally, yeah,
Speaker 2: all of it. Yeah, yeah, which is kind of means
Speaker 2: Jack's the boss of you and kind of means you're
Speaker 2: the boss of Jack. Yes, How did you navigate that
Speaker 2: in the conversations that you had to have on that
Speaker 2: day when you were saying you're going to rehab and
Speaker 2: Jack's like, no, not, I don't need to.
Speaker 5: Well, it was always the lens of a friend, and
Speaker 5: we always put our friendship first. Like we've worked together
Speaker 5: for many, many years in different capacities, so that's not
Speaker 5: unusual for us. But our friendship's always come first.
Speaker 2: But a friend can't force another friend to do something.
Speaker 2: Whereas you had everything in your hand, because you obviously
Speaker 2: knew if you have an accident, if you get busted, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot at stake here apart from
Speaker 2: your actual health and safety.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll just can I because so Gemma had only
Speaker 1: just become my manager, not long into it, like we
Speaker 1: had just decided on that it's a fast art. Yeah,
Speaker 1: wasn't it to talk about throwing her into the deep end.
Speaker 1: But in the past when things like this have come up,
Speaker 1: certainly never anything like what happened then, but little things.
Speaker 1: Gemma is really good in keeping me on I guess advice,
Speaker 1: and I've always taken her advice very seriously, And I
Speaker 1: think it goes back to our friendship. Really started to
Speaker 1: bond tightly when she became EP of the show. So
Speaker 1: she would always say to me, I think it's a
Speaker 1: good idea if you do this, I think this is great.
Speaker 1: I think you know, this will sound really good on air,
Speaker 1: and I know it's uncomfortable, and so I've always really
Speaker 1: valued her advice. And I think that day when you
Speaker 1: said about the rehab, I can't speak for you, but
Speaker 1: I never felt for a second you had any managerial
Speaker 1: hat or career hat on at all at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't at all.
Speaker 2: And did you have jack that muscle memory of she
Speaker 2: makes good decisions?
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, because anyone else could have said that to me,
Speaker 1: my mom, Yeah, you know, anyone could have said that
Speaker 1: and I would have dismissed it and gone forget it,
Speaker 1: no way, no how. But with Jemma, I've always known
Speaker 1: that she does actually you know, I really do value
Speaker 1: what she says. And so I might have said I'm
Speaker 1: not going to rehab, that's ridiculous, and I reckon ten
Speaker 1: seconds later, I was like, okay. Then it was very like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I can't. Really it was probably a bit more than
Speaker 1: ten seconds. Yeah, it was, I'll tell you what. It
Speaker 1: went back and forth. So I agreed, and then I
Speaker 1: pushed it back again and I said to wait, I
Speaker 1: don't think this is you know. So there was definite
Speaker 1: resistance for a while. Yeah, but she has a one of.
Speaker 2: The things that surprised me and I found so interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean, everything in this book I found so interesting,
Speaker 2: but the part about where they say at rehab, between
Speaker 2: booking and arriving, you have to keep taking exactly the
Speaker 2: same amount of whatever it is you're addicted to until
Speaker 2: you get there. Can you explain that?
Speaker 5: Jem Sure, so, because in Jack's circumstance, she hadn't called herself.
Speaker 5: They still won't admit someone until the person says, yes,
Speaker 5: I am willing to come, because it's voluntary exactly, And
Speaker 5: so I did all the initial stuff with them, but
Speaker 5: then I did have Jack had to then get on
Speaker 5: the phone with them and confirm that she was willing
Speaker 5: to come and answer all of their questions. And then
Speaker 5: they spoke to me again and they really expressed to
Speaker 5: me that what can commonly occur is with people who
Speaker 5: know they're going into rehab, they can either try and
Speaker 5: really massively.
Speaker 1: Overdose, have a go out.
Speaker 5: They think, well, this is my last time to go hard,
Speaker 5: and that can be extremely dangerous and is also when
Speaker 5: there's often fatalities.
Speaker 2: I was reading about someone recently who died on their
Speaker 2: way to rehab, and I didn't realize it was a celebrity.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize how why that was. I was like,
Speaker 2: surely by the time you've decided to go to rehab. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah, your book helped me understand.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And that hadn't occurred to me either me or
Speaker 5: so when they said it, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 5: they said, so that's a real concern to be aware of.
Speaker 5: And also they'll try and pretend that they're tapering off
Speaker 5: and that they can do it, and then they'll go, see,
Speaker 5: I don't need to go now I've actually now taken
Speaker 5: like less and both options are actually very dangerous. So
Speaker 5: they said it's really important that she takes the same amount,
Speaker 5: and so I had to monitor that for that week,
Speaker 5: which was really strange.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you needed to be very closely supervised and
Speaker 2: not left alone that week.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I stayed with her the whole week.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What about your life, jem, Like, that's a big thing,
Speaker 2: because you were not just on your way to the
Speaker 2: you know, you're going in the way to your kids.
Speaker 2: You have two kids. Were you still married at that point? No,
Speaker 2: so you're a single mum. Yeah, you have two little
Speaker 2: kids and you literally you've got a life of career,
Speaker 2: a family. You had to put everything on hold, not
Speaker 2: just for that week, but to also fly over with
Speaker 2: Jack because she couldn't go on her own and admit
Speaker 2: her all the way to the gate. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a friend. That's why I say everyone needs
Speaker 1: a friend like Gemma.
Speaker 5: And I always say one day, I'm sure I'll ask
Speaker 5: for something.
Speaker 1: And I hope you do scenario No.
Speaker 5: I Yeah, I was very lucky that I have a
Speaker 5: good relationship thankfully with my ex husband. We co parent
Speaker 5: really well together and we're still friends, and so I
Speaker 5: was able to say to him, which is also very rare,
Speaker 5: because you know, I spend so much time the kids
Speaker 5: are with me a lot. I was able to say
Speaker 5: to him, Hey, just I need you to take the
Speaker 5: kids for a week, and so why and I just
Speaker 5: am asking you as a favor, could she help me out?
Speaker 5: And I think because he knows they're with me so much,
Speaker 5: and he's a good guy in that sense that he
Speaker 5: said sure, like you know, you very rarely asked me
Speaker 5: to step in, and I'm happy too, so he did.
Speaker 5: But I also knew that I only had a week
Speaker 5: because I actually then had to get back to the kids.
Speaker 5: And I'm also one of those this is one of
Speaker 5: the things I'm working on on myself. We're all, you know,
Speaker 5: evolving into as we get older. But is that I
Speaker 5: am so dedicated to my kids like most parents are,
Speaker 5: but mine's probably unhealthily so to the point where I
Speaker 5: never want to leave them.
Speaker 2: I tell you love helicopter.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm like a helicopter. I just love being with
Speaker 5: them and so when I'm not with them, I get
Speaker 5: terrible guilt. But I you know, for that week, there
Speaker 5: was nothing obviously more important to me than getting jack
Speaker 5: the help that she needed. So I was fortunate enough
Speaker 5: that in my personal life a few things aligned, but
Speaker 5: even I had to make up things because I had
Speaker 5: like work commitments that week and I'd have to say, oh,
Speaker 5: I've just got to go on a trip now for work,
Speaker 5: so I'm gonna have to push that out, or friends
Speaker 5: and were meant to be coming to, you know, stay
Speaker 5: with me for the weekend. The following weekend, I had
Speaker 5: to say, I've got a work trip, which was also
Speaker 5: because I also everyone knows that we're so tightly connected.
Speaker 5: So I also was mindful that if anyone figures out, well,
Speaker 5: why is she away and she's also away, that's a
Speaker 5: bit weird.
Speaker 2: Like, so I was trying to, you know, make sure
Speaker 2: that there was no moving. There were so many movings
Speaker 2: because you had to call your ex husband, but Jackie
Speaker 2: also had to call yours, yeah, and tell him what
Speaker 2: was that conversation?
Speaker 1: Like it was kind of short, and I mean the
Speaker 1: thing with with my ex husband, Lee, I think you know,
Speaker 1: he could probably tell in a way that there was
Speaker 1: problems there, and I think for him, he was just
Speaker 1: very he was empathetic and understanding. He had no judgment,
Speaker 1: and he said, I think that's wonderful. I think it's
Speaker 1: so good that you're addressing it then, and you know,
Speaker 1: I will take care of Kitty and she you know,
Speaker 1: And because we had to figure out how do I
Speaker 1: because she likes to FaceTime, how am I going to
Speaker 1: FaceTime her and rehab? What am I going to say?
Speaker 1: And so we came up with the idea of it
Speaker 1: being a radio conference and you know that I would
Speaker 1: be overseas and and Lee was yeah, he I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the thing with Lee, he is just one of
Speaker 1: the greatest guys to co parent with. I mean, we
Speaker 1: were great together in our marriage, but he has never
Speaker 1: made anything difficult for me and vice versa.
Speaker 2: Both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, incredible.
Speaker 2: I won't say I mean lucky. Yes, because the guys
Speaker 2: that you were married could have been assholes or could
Speaker 2: have become assholes after you divorced. And it takes two
Speaker 2: people to make a good relationship after a divorce. But
Speaker 2: what about the conversation you had to make to your
Speaker 2: other husband or your other part husband called Kyle?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Kyle, it was It was just difficult because I
Speaker 1: didn't know if he was going to ask questions. That's
Speaker 1: what I was worried about because with Kyle, I didn't
Speaker 1: want to. I didn't want to lie to anyone. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to, and so I was able to stick
Speaker 1: to the truth somewhat in saying that I'm just not
Speaker 1: getting better and I need to take this time off otherwise.
Speaker 1: And it did seem odd because we were three weeks
Speaker 1: away from being on a long holiday anyway, So I
Speaker 1: knew that for him that would be a little bit odd,
Speaker 1: like why can't she just hang in there for three weeks?
Speaker 1: She always hangs in there.
Speaker 2: You know. And I said, I have my COVID my
Speaker 2: lung infection.
Speaker 1: I'm not I just need it. And you know, I
Speaker 1: said to him, I'm struggling, like I did tell him that,
Speaker 1: and he was like, yeah, Okay, it's gonna be shit,
Speaker 1: but I get it, and I'm you know, you do
Speaker 1: what you got to do, and don't ask that many questions. No,
Speaker 1: they don't do. They just take everything to face value.
Speaker 2: In another part of your book, when you start dating,
Speaker 2: not a lot of questions. I do take things at
Speaker 2: face value.
Speaker 1: They really do, and we should take them at phase
Speaker 1: value at the time.
Speaker 2: Maybe we asked too many questions before we get to
Speaker 2: the logistics, and I'm not going to talk about rehab itself,
Speaker 2: because you go into that so beautifully and interestingly in
Speaker 2: the book. I want you to be to explain what
Speaker 2: addiction looked like, because from the way we've been talking,
Speaker 2: you know, I was taking too many pills and then
Speaker 2: I was a bit tired and blah blah, and I
Speaker 2: had to hide it, but talk about the physical effects
Speaker 2: and what it did to your life.
Speaker 1: So in the there's very different stages of it. So
Speaker 1: in the beginning, when I had just separated and was
Speaker 1: new to it and using it as a coping mechanism,
Speaker 1: it was quite It was affecting me quite visibly, I think,
Speaker 1: and because my behavior was strange in that early stage.
Speaker 1: Now I was just going through a separation from not
Speaker 1: only my husband but also fifty percent of the time
Speaker 1: with my child, and so friends would come over, but
Speaker 1: they would also see that I was drinking like a
Speaker 1: goblet of wine. So they just put it down to
Speaker 1: that going through a divorce turning to a bit more
Speaker 1: alcohol than she should. But we've seen that play out
Speaker 1: many times, so it doesn't warrant an intervention by any means.
Speaker 1: But in those stages, I mean, I would the particularly
Speaker 1: the still knocks would just have a great effect, so
Speaker 1: you would take one. I would kind of wait until
Speaker 1: later in the day for that, because you know who
Speaker 1: wakes up and takes a still Knox. That didn't happen
Speaker 1: till later. And then once I had that still knox
Speaker 1: with the alcohol I'd already been drinking during the day,
Speaker 1: then you have this sort of blackout like and I
Speaker 1: don't mean blackouts, and you're on the bed, collapsed and
Speaker 1: you sleep for you know, hours on end. You're functioning normally,
Speaker 1: but you can't remember anything you did the night before.
Speaker 1: And I remember waking up one morning and I got
Speaker 1: this message from this guy who I haven't even said
Speaker 1: this in the book. I got a message from a
Speaker 1: guy and he said, oh, like, yeah, that sounds good,
Speaker 1: he said, but you know you should be careful who
Speaker 1: you say something like that too. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what did I say to this guy?
Speaker 1: Would I say? And I scrolled back up to have
Speaker 1: a look, and I think I'd said to him something
Speaker 1: like hey, because we'd been on a date or something,
Speaker 1: and I said to him, hey, do you want to
Speaker 1: be friends with benefits? I mean, fuck, I'm mortified at
Speaker 1: the thought of even asking a guy that this guy was.
Speaker 1: This guy was I barely knew him. He was on
Speaker 1: TV and everyone knew this guy. And I thought, I've
Speaker 1: just asked this guy to be friends with benefits and
Speaker 1: I would never have done that sober, Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: I would see these things. The next day. I'd almost
Speaker 1: wake up in fear of what did I do? And
Speaker 1: I would scroll through my phone for evidence. I'd go,
Speaker 1: who did I text? What did I say? Because you
Speaker 1: become like this, it's almost like you want to chat,
Speaker 1: and you want to You've got all this kind of
Speaker 1: the idea seems so good in your head at the time,
Speaker 1: but then when you're sober and you wake up the
Speaker 1: next day, you go, what on earth was I thinking?
Speaker 1: So it was very destructive outer character behavior and scary
Speaker 1: to think that you are doing things that you don't remember.
Speaker 1: And then it got to a point where I'd have
Speaker 1: to write post it notes to remind myself of what
Speaker 1: I was doing, conversation and conversations I'd had. And then
Speaker 1: just in terms of the feeling, there wasn't actually even
Speaker 1: that great a feeling with it. It was more just
Speaker 1: the way I would like and it was just like
Speaker 1: it was numbing pain.
Speaker 2: What about the ulcer that also was that?
Speaker 1: I mean like I had this ulco where it was
Speaker 1: because of neurofy and plus and so I had no
Speaker 1: idea that iyberprofen would cause that kind of damage.
Speaker 2: And it was like such vast quantities on an empty
Speaker 2: stomach without.
Speaker 1: Absolutely they even say, I think when you normally take it,
Speaker 1: even on an empty stomach can be dangerous and you
Speaker 1: can get ulcers. So taking too much of iberprof and
Speaker 1: I wasn't even looking at the eyberprofen. I was just
Speaker 1: looking at the codeine. I wasn't even thinking about that.
Speaker 1: And little did I know that that had a severe
Speaker 1: side effect. So the consequences of all of that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like were so leading. Ray didn't you? Yeah, yeah I did.
Speaker 1: I did, And it was really really big.
Speaker 2: You talk about how you became, You retreated from the world.
Speaker 2: You didn't want to go out, you didn't want to
Speaker 2: see your friends. The only time you'd see your friends
Speaker 2: is if they came to you. It was also COVID,
Speaker 2: so you just became more and more you know, closed
Speaker 2: it away. But then even when restrictions lifted, you didn't
Speaker 2: want to leave your self imposed prison.
Speaker 1: No, I was almost like, oh damn, the restrictions are lifted.
Speaker 1: That means like everyone, well, yeah, everyone's getting out and
Speaker 1: socializing again. And I didn't want to, like because COVID
Speaker 1: just all the ingredients were there. It was the perfect
Speaker 1: recipe for a lot of people. Yeah you could, Yeah
Speaker 1: you really could. And working from home just you know,
Speaker 1: gave us a lot of us an excuse to escape
Speaker 1: and not have any real you know, you didn't have
Speaker 1: half of your responsibilities were gone sometimes, you know, you
Speaker 1: didn't have to drive, and so therefore we could drink more.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, it was it was just like this
Speaker 1: kind of perfect storm, the moment in time that just
Speaker 1: all added to the convenience of making that situation worse
Speaker 1: and enabling it, you know. And so it was when
Speaker 1: the restrictions were lifted and people started socializing again, that
Speaker 1: was hard because I was still isolating myself away and
Speaker 1: I was very well aware that I was just not
Speaker 1: living life at all, but thinking it was better than
Speaker 1: what everyone else was doing.
Speaker 2: That was something that was so interesting in your book.
Speaker 2: You described I'd look at everybody else and I'd feel
Speaker 2: pity for them. It's like I'm just having a much
Speaker 2: better time with my pills, and then how after rehabit
Speaker 2: flipped and when you're like you just appreciated everything so much,
Speaker 2: jem I want to ask about the logistics of getting
Speaker 2: someone famous. And that wasn't the end of my conversation
Speaker 2: with Jackie and Jemma. There is still a lot of
Speaker 2: ground to cover, like how did Jemma manage to get
Speaker 2: jack out of the country without being hounded by the paps?
Speaker 2: And what was rehab like and more importantly, most importantly,
Speaker 2: how's she going now. We also spoke about why the
Speaker 2: world was so obsessed with her weight and what the
Speaker 2: true story was behind that. Like I said, so much
Speaker 2: more meet us in part two. We'll be waiting for you.
Speaker 2: There's a link in the show notes.