Speaker 1: Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
Speaker 1: were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders
Speaker 1: past and present.
Speaker 2: Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was
Speaker 2: recorded on Cameragle Land.
Speaker 1: Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut.
Speaker 1: I'm Brittany and I'm Laura, and today we have an
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful episode with Kate Derouge. Now you might have
Speaker 1: heard of Kate's name back in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: she was the winner of Australian Idol. But what happened
Speaker 1: to Kate after wasn't the fairy tale that we all
Speaker 1: led to believe will happen.
Speaker 2: It really is a story that flawed me and the
Speaker 2: way in which Kate and I don't even want to
Speaker 2: call it a fall from grace, but when you think
Speaker 2: about being at the top of the reality TV pinnacle
Speaker 2: Idle back in two thousand and five, was like everybody
Speaker 2: knew who she was, everybody knew what she was capable,
Speaker 2: and this is a story about the demons that she
Speaker 2: was fighting at the time. Kate talks about addiction in
Speaker 2: this episode. She talks about addictive personalities and how that
Speaker 2: unfolded in her life. She was arrested, she was charged
Speaker 2: for drug driving, and she also found herself in incredibly
Speaker 2: abusive relationships. This conversation is one that I think if
Speaker 2: you have ever had a predetermined idea of what addiction is,
Speaker 2: this is something that I think will really open your
Speaker 2: eyes as to how people who are suffering from addiction,
Speaker 2: or who are addicts themselves, how they experience life and
Speaker 2: the reasons why someone may be led down that path.
Speaker 3: Also, just the way.
Speaker 1: She speaks so openly about how you can go from
Speaker 1: being a beautiful, bubbly, blonde, confidence successful eighteen year old
Speaker 1: to a meth addict is something that a lot of
Speaker 1: people think, how could you possibly get there? Like what
Speaker 1: could have gone on in your life to have gotten there?
Speaker 1: It truly is a story not just about the lowest
Speaker 1: of lows and hitting rock bottom, but it's the highs
Speaker 1: and the way she pulled herself out of it and
Speaker 1: got a life back on track to live now a
Speaker 1: completely fulfilling, healthy.
Speaker 3: And loving line. Kate, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 3: the podcast.
Speaker 4: Today, No RS girls, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: We start every episode the same, and that's with an
Speaker 2: accidentally unfiltered story, and we just said, Kate, do you
Speaker 2: have an embarrassing story? And your response to that, which
Speaker 2: was funny in itself, you were like, I was a
Speaker 2: drug addict for a better part of a decade. Of
Speaker 2: course I have embarrassing stories. And then it made me think.
Speaker 3: I was like, is it appropriate to ask that question?
Speaker 2: But we're gonna do it anyway, and you can tell
Speaker 2: us whatever embarrassing story you feel comfortable with.
Speaker 4: As I said, I've got a few, but probably one
Speaker 4: of the more appropriate ones is the young Devers were
Speaker 4: on tour and I, as you can imagine, we're meant
Speaker 4: to come out full of attitude and struting on stage
Speaker 4: down this set of stairs, and I was full of
Speaker 4: attitude and sass, and I just went face first down
Speaker 4: the stairs. So that was pretty That was pretty embarrassing.
Speaker 1: I love that you said I was a drug addict.
Speaker 3: I have so many, But your embarrassing story was before that.
Speaker 4: I was probably during but yeah, all measures in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Kate, Like, there's so much about this, like your
Speaker 2: life and where you're at now that we want to
Speaker 2: unpack and understand. And it's really beautiful how vulnerably you
Speaker 2: speak about the lessons that you've learned and where you
Speaker 2: are now in life and this recovery. But I would
Speaker 2: love to go back to two thousand and five. I'd
Speaker 2: love to go back to your experience on Idle. And
Speaker 2: you know this is for anyone if you don't remember.
Speaker 2: This is such a pinnacle time in reality TV. Casey
Speaker 2: Donovan was the winner the year prior of Australian Idol
Speaker 2: in two thousand and four and it was like the
Speaker 2: height of viewership of Australian reality TV. So you really
Speaker 2: are kind of plucked from obscurity and then put onto
Speaker 2: the absolute mass center stage where everyone in Australia knows
Speaker 2: who you are and what you're doing.
Speaker 3: What was that period of your life.
Speaker 4: Like, well, I mean I was eighteen and a kid
Speaker 4: and had really no concept of what I was doing.
Speaker 4: And I'd auditioned two years before as well and got
Speaker 4: not through the front you know, I didn't get through
Speaker 4: the front door. So I guess I spent a lot
Speaker 4: of it pretty disassociated from my body. And I know
Speaker 4: that's really sad, but I talk about that a lot
Speaker 4: like I was a kid and a young like a
Speaker 4: young adult that was just so riddled with fear and
Speaker 4: imposter syndrome and all of that stuff that I just
Speaker 4: just was forever in fear that I was going to
Speaker 4: wake up one day and someone was going to say, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is a big giant mistake. If you could just
Speaker 4: fuck off.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I hope I'm allowed to swear here.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I I try really.
Speaker 4: Hard not to. So, yeah, it was the crazy time,
Speaker 4: but it was also one of the most exciting times.
Speaker 4: And people always ask me, oh, would you do idol again,
Speaker 4: and I'll blame this, and Id'll blame that, and I
Speaker 4: always say, you know, yes, it was a difficult time
Speaker 4: for me, but it also gave me the opportunities to
Speaker 4: do the things that little girls dream of. You know.
Speaker 4: I got to sing in front of thousands, hundreds of
Speaker 4: thousands of people. You know, I got to sing at
Speaker 4: Grand Finals. I got to sing all over Australia and
Speaker 4: do incredible things. And I wouldn't give that back for
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 1: What did it do for your confidence at such a
Speaker 1: young age? You said you applied twice and didn't even
Speaker 1: get through the front door. So I'm assuming that when
Speaker 1: you did win you were not expecting it. But at
Speaker 1: only like sixteen and seventeen years old, getting knocked back,
Speaker 1: thinking that you're good enough to go and apply for this,
Speaker 1: but then them saying like, we don't even want to
Speaker 1: hear from you. Did that set you up with any
Speaker 1: sort of lack of confidence before you even got started?
Speaker 4: Ummm, yes, and no, I think. Look, I just to
Speaker 4: be honest, I wasn't going to go to the third audition.
Speaker 4: I had no intentions of going. I was living on
Speaker 4: the Gold Coast at the time, and I was running
Speaker 4: pub crawls for backpackers, and I was on the Sunshine
Speaker 4: Coast hungover, if the truth is, And my seeing teacher
Speaker 4: rang me and said, get your ass in the car
Speaker 4: and get to those auditions, just even just to see
Speaker 4: if you've improved from the year before. So I didn't.
Speaker 4: Probably the third year I went in with a really
Speaker 4: different attitude, like the world didn't rely for me on
Speaker 4: me getting through. It was just to see if I'd
Speaker 4: got any better and could get a little bit further
Speaker 4: than the year before.
Speaker 2: You just said that you auditioned and you were hungover.
Speaker 2: Was that already at eighteen? Do you recognize that you
Speaker 2: already had issues with alcohol or substances prior to doing
Speaker 2: Idle or do you think that it was kind of
Speaker 2: enmeshed in that time.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've done everything to the extreme since I
Speaker 4: was forever. You know, My first experience with addiction started
Speaker 4: with food when I was a little kid, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, Like, I just did everything to the
Speaker 4: absolute extremes always, so when I drank, I drank too much,
Speaker 4: When I ate too much, When I was in a relationship,
Speaker 4: I love too much, Like I just do everything too much. Still,
Speaker 4: I wasn't in any kind of dark addiction by that point,
Speaker 4: but I guess the behaviors were already there.
Speaker 2: When you do something like reality TV, and I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, we've spoken about it a bit because we've
Speaker 2: had our own experiences with kind of living very normal
Speaker 2: lives and then all of a sudden having everybody in
Speaker 2: the country having an opinion on the way you look,
Speaker 2: the way you talk, I mean, in your case, the
Speaker 2: way you sing. Like there's so many things that you
Speaker 2: get criticized and critiqued on. What did that do for you?
Speaker 2: And when you say you already struggled with you know,
Speaker 2: over eating at that time when you were younger like
Speaker 2: and already struggled with body confidence issues, going and putting
Speaker 2: yourself out there on a platform where so many people
Speaker 2: have an opinion on the person that you are.
Speaker 3: What did that do to you?
Speaker 4: It destroyed me, to be honest, like I had already
Speaker 4: through high school and primary school, always struggled with my
Speaker 4: weight and really just hated the body that I lived
Speaker 4: in for as long as I could remember. And I guess,
Speaker 4: you know, I'd picked up lots of bits of information
Speaker 4: and situations that had helped me confirm that I wasn't
Speaker 4: okay in the body that I was in for years.
Speaker 4: And then I stepped into this world where people thought
Speaker 4: it was totally acceptable and they had the right to
Speaker 4: comment on the body that I had on a really
Speaker 4: public platform, and I didn't realize at the time, but
Speaker 4: it became trauma. Like it became trauma for me, you know,
Speaker 4: people every time I looked at something, no one was
Speaker 4: talking about my singing or my voice or music. They
Speaker 4: were talking about the size of my ass in a
Speaker 4: pair of genes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, Well, I.
Speaker 4: Guess it just becomes like a core message and a
Speaker 4: learnt thinking. You know, that was just my thinking that
Speaker 4: it was just drilled into me that what was considered
Speaker 4: beautiful and acceptable was that unattainable skinny look and like
Speaker 4: it didn't matter how many hours I spent on a
Speaker 4: treadmill mill or how many bits of letters I ate,
Speaker 4: like I was never gonna look like that, Like it
Speaker 4: just wasn't achievable for me. So I just lived in
Speaker 4: this world where it didn't matter what I did. I
Speaker 4: just didn't feel like I was good enough.
Speaker 2: I'd love to kind of get an understanding of, like
Speaker 2: what that period was, because you've come out, You've won Idol.
Speaker 2: There are so many opportunities that open up for you
Speaker 2: in that point, But there are only opportunities if you're
Speaker 2: able to seize them and make the most of those opportunities.
Speaker 2: What happened for you? Were you able to be fully engaged?
Speaker 2: Were you at a point where it was too challenging
Speaker 2: too like what was going through your mind? And what
Speaker 2: happened like in a sequence after that, Oh.
Speaker 4: So much happened. But look, and I just do want
Speaker 4: to say, like I talk about these experiences really openly
Speaker 4: and honestly, but I don't I don't ask for like
Speaker 4: it's not a p I don't feel like I've done all,
Speaker 4: Like I've come out the other side of it and
Speaker 4: I'm okay. But you know it was hard. Like I
Speaker 4: had a record label and a management company that wanted
Speaker 4: me to look a certain way, and I would get
Speaker 4: in trouble for not being a certain size. Like we
Speaker 4: would go on a photo shoot, especially once I hit
Speaker 4: the young divas, We would go on a photo shoots
Speaker 4: and I wouldn't fit into clothes, and again that's super
Speaker 4: damaging for a young girl. I would show up, but
Speaker 4: I would just show up riddled, as I said, with
Speaker 4: so much fear and anxiety and just hatred for myself.
Speaker 4: And it's hard to be present and do your best
Speaker 4: work when you like that's your baseline.
Speaker 1: Were the record label and your management very open about
Speaker 1: the fact that you needed to lose weight, is that
Speaker 1: literally there's no scooting around the edges. It was like, hey,
Speaker 1: to be successful, you need to trim down.
Speaker 4: They didn't say it in that many words, but they
Speaker 4: may as well have many times, and look, it was
Speaker 4: acceptable to do so in that time, like people could
Speaker 4: tell you, like people would openly say you got to
Speaker 4: lose weight or you know, And I remember I did
Speaker 4: lose weight at one point and the head of the
Speaker 4: record label at the time come up and said, Kate,
Speaker 4: you're on the right track, just keep going, you know.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, So yeah, it was just okay. And look,
Speaker 4: I had full I had my first major surgery around
Speaker 4: my body when I was nineteen. I had full body
Speaker 4: LIPEO from head to toe, which was certainly pretty supported
Speaker 4: by both record label and management at the time at nineteen.
Speaker 4: I don't recommend it. Well, it wasn't the solution either,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, Like it was a quick
Speaker 4: fix and it sorted some things out momentarily, but it
Speaker 4: didn't deal with the core of the issue, and it
Speaker 4: didn't deal with the internal world, Like it didn't take
Speaker 4: any of that away. I woke up and these you know,
Speaker 4: that thinking and stuff was still there. So yeah, I
Speaker 4: guess and looking amongst all that that's when I met drugs,
Speaker 4: and that's when the drugs then became my new solution
Speaker 4: to all of those problems that I'd carried around forever
Speaker 4: until they weren't.
Speaker 2: When you say you met drugs, do you think that
Speaker 2: that was part and parcel of being I mean everyone
Speaker 2: kind of associates like this celebrity lifestyle or being a
Speaker 2: rock star, like moving in those circles with the accessibility.
Speaker 3: Is that and was that your experience.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know anybody who's cocaine, and I haven't
Speaker 4: been in the industry for a little minute, but like,
Speaker 4: I'm sure it's still the same. Cocaine is so different
Speaker 4: to me, Like here's a beer and he's a line,
Speaker 4: and it was really normal. And you know, all my life,
Speaker 4: I just wanted to be thin, cool and acceptable, and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden I met this thing called cocaine
Speaker 4: and it was my solution to my life. Suddenly I
Speaker 4: wasn't eating the same. I felt cool and acceptable, and
Speaker 4: people wanted to be my friend because I was in
Speaker 4: a position where I could afford it, and so people
Speaker 4: wanted to be around me.
Speaker 1: So how often do you think you were doing cocaine
Speaker 1: at that time in the early stages.
Speaker 4: Well, initially it wasn't. It wasn't like I did it,
Speaker 4: and then I did it every day from then on.
Speaker 4: But I was obsessed from the minute that I had it.
Speaker 4: I wasn't just like, oh, I'll have a line and
Speaker 4: enjoy my night and go home, go to bed and
Speaker 4: get on with it like everybody else. It was like
Speaker 4: where did that shit go? And where? And how can
Speaker 4: I get more of it? Immediately? And I was abset,
Speaker 4: like I was obsessed with it going around the room.
Speaker 4: I was assessed when it was going to be my
Speaker 4: turn again. And I guess even though I didn't use
Speaker 4: it every day from then on, I thought about it,
Speaker 4: and I thought about when I was going to, how
Speaker 4: I was going to, and it was in my mind always.
Speaker 2: It's so fascinating to me. There's been a research study
Speaker 2: that was done on cocaine with rats. I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people might be familiar with it, but in
Speaker 2: like a quick summary of what this research study was
Speaker 2: is that one rat and they gave it the option
Speaker 2: of normal water and cocaine water, and the rat drank
Speaker 2: the cocaine water obviously until it died because it became
Speaker 2: addicted to it. And then I can't remember the name
Speaker 2: of the scientists who came along, but someone was like,
Speaker 2: when it comes to addiction, this is a flawed study
Speaker 2: because the study itself doesn't bring in all of the
Speaker 2: things around community. It doesn't because rats are social animals
Speaker 2: in the same way that humans are social animals, and
Speaker 2: so they did the same experiment, but they put the
Speaker 2: rat into an environment where it had all the things
Speaker 2: that would make it like a rat heaven, you know,
Speaker 2: with like games and wheels and other rats like. They
Speaker 2: gave it a community, and then they gave it the
Speaker 2: two sources of water and also the water that had
Speaker 2: the cocaine in it, and all of the rats tried
Speaker 2: the cocaine water, but because they had all the other
Speaker 2: things in their life that gave them purpose and made
Speaker 2: them excited to just be rats, they preferred the water
Speaker 2: in most instances. And so it was a real change
Speaker 2: on the original study.
Speaker 1: I've literally never heard of us song, Oh I got
Speaker 1: no Lincoln super famous.
Speaker 4: It's a super famous study.
Speaker 2: It's a really famous study around addiction, and it's really
Speaker 2: fascinating because, you know, it looks at addiction as being
Speaker 2: a really holistic thing where it's not just because you
Speaker 2: get addicted to a thing in your life. It's not
Speaker 2: that you're just addicted to cocaine, but it also can
Speaker 2: be because you're lacking in other things in your life
Speaker 2: that give you support, that give you a feeling of
Speaker 2: a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging for you. Specifically,
Speaker 2: you mentioned that addiction had been something that was a
Speaker 2: part of your whole life, that everything was to the extreme,
Speaker 2: and that when you discovered drugs, it just kind of
Speaker 2: followed a pattern that you'd already been exposed to in
Speaker 2: your life. Have you, in the self work that you've done,
Speaker 2: figured out what is it like? Where did that addictive
Speaker 2: personality come from? And how was that shaped in you
Speaker 2: as a person.
Speaker 4: Looks There's lots of different ideas and theories and thoughts
Speaker 4: about addiction and ways of recovery. I am a big
Speaker 4: believer in the disease model of addiction, and I believe
Speaker 4: that I have the disease of addiction, and that it's
Speaker 4: I guess the best way for it to explain it
Speaker 4: is like when drugs hit me bit like someone has
Speaker 4: a peanut allergy, I have an allergic reaction, Like it
Speaker 4: just hits my body a bit different to the way
Speaker 4: it might hit yours or somebody else's, and the obsession
Speaker 4: and the compulsion sets off and I can't stop. And
Speaker 4: you know, it's not a curable disease in the way,
Speaker 4: there's no medication that will make it go away forever,
Speaker 4: but it can be arrested and I can live a
Speaker 4: life in recovery from it. And that's that's the model
Speaker 4: that I've gone down. So I believe it. That was
Speaker 4: in my DNA and It was a perfect storm in
Speaker 4: my life, as you know, a chain of events that
Speaker 4: set it off. If that makes sense, You ended up.
Speaker 1: Being addicted to a horrific drug ice.
Speaker 3: How did you get.
Speaker 1: From drinking cocaine to as far as ice?
Speaker 4: People always ask that question, and I wish it was that.
Speaker 4: I wish it was simple. But look, my drug addiction
Speaker 4: span over the best part of fourteen years, and obviously
Speaker 4: the drugs that I used and abused over those years
Speaker 4: like changed and progressed, and the people that I spent
Speaker 4: time with changed and progressed. Until one day, you know,
Speaker 4: I was in a situation where someone offered me meth,
Speaker 4: and by that point, my self esteem, self worth, and
Speaker 4: all the things that go with that were non existence.
Speaker 4: So it wasn't even a thought like if I, in
Speaker 4: my saying sober brain, someone said try some meth, you'd
Speaker 4: probably go. People say that's pretty bad, and your life
Speaker 4: goes to shit when you do it and you think
Speaker 4: about it. But by the point that it was offered
Speaker 4: to me, I was already too far gone to even care.
Speaker 4: I just wanted to feel better, and I just wanted
Speaker 4: the pain to be taken away.
Speaker 2: But did you know and understand at the time the
Speaker 2: impact that this was having on your life, or did
Speaker 2: you think that you still could hold together, like you
Speaker 2: could hold the success down, you could do the work opportunities,
Speaker 2: you could still be a singer performing on stage, or
Speaker 2: did you see, fuck, this is really spiraling out of
Speaker 2: control for me.
Speaker 4: Oh that's a great question. Look, I was already pretty
Speaker 4: done by the time I really met Ice. You know,
Speaker 4: I did have a second go at trying to relaunch
Speaker 4: a career, but I was already gone. Like I was
Speaker 4: already so deluded in an ice addiction. I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I can do this, It'll be fine. What I'm about
Speaker 4: to say is controversial, but in the beginning, Ice made
Speaker 4: me be better than I was before. You know, before
Speaker 4: I sort of got to Ice, I was pretty bad alcoholic.
Speaker 4: I was drinking a lot. I was doing a lot
Speaker 4: of drugs. I wasn't in a I didn't look good.
Speaker 4: I wasn't in a good way. But when I met
Speaker 4: when I met Crystal meth like, I was productive. I
Speaker 4: started to lose more weight, which made people take me
Speaker 4: more seriously. Ever, I was like, you look fantastic. I
Speaker 4: was like, yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: WHI TI is crazy because you know then yourself that like,
Speaker 1: you've never been lower, you've never been worse or more unhealthy,
Speaker 1: and it's I guess that's the vicious cycle.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but in that small window in the beginning on
Speaker 4: the outside, to everybody else, you know, everyone was like, wow, okay,
Speaker 4: it's really on top of her game. Until I wasn't.
Speaker 4: So I guess in answer to your question, no, I
Speaker 4: was so deluded and I'd already been in addiction for
Speaker 4: so long that my thinking was just it was shocking.
Speaker 3: What did rock bottom look like for you?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 4: I had lots and lots of rock bottoms over the years.
Speaker 4: I had lots of public rock bottoms. I got caught
Speaker 4: drug driving, I did all that all over the newspapers,
Speaker 4: lost my career, lost contracts, all that extra like road
Speaker 4: off cars, lost houses, lost boyfriends, lost all of that
Speaker 4: external stuff heaps of times too. And I get, you know, rehabs,
Speaker 4: all all the stuff that you would assume would be
Speaker 4: enough for someone to say, yeah, the probably should pull
Speaker 4: up now, that's probably enough. But the rock, I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't know how deep you want to go here,
Speaker 4: but like the rock, the rock bottom for me was
Speaker 4: really my final rock. But was a really quiet personal moment,
Speaker 4: and I was sitting on my bathroom floor. I was
Speaker 4: in a domestic violent relationship at the time. My face
Speaker 4: was a mess. I couldn't use drugs the way that
Speaker 4: I wanted to use them because my veins were all busted.
Speaker 4: And I just caught myself in the mirror and I
Speaker 4: was like, who the fuck are you like? Who? And
Speaker 4: how did we get from that eighteen year old girl
Speaker 4: on Australian idol with the blonde hair and all the
Speaker 4: opportunities at her feet to this? And I just knew
Speaker 4: in that moment that if things didn't change, I was
Speaker 4: going to die. And that was the beginning of the
Speaker 4: end of my active addiction. I guess I've been addicted
Speaker 4: to drugs for a really long time. But crystal meth
Speaker 4: or ice, whatever you want to call it, was the
Speaker 4: one that brought me to my knees. It was the
Speaker 4: one that made me do things that I didn't think
Speaker 4: I was capable of doing, and made me do behaviors.
Speaker 4: It turned me into a criminal, It turned me into
Speaker 4: some things that I still can't believe that I did. Yes,
Speaker 4: it's sort of fast tracked that internal devastation.
Speaker 2: So sorry, I'm so grateful for you sharing this and
Speaker 2: being so honest about it. I grew up in a
Speaker 2: household with a stepdad who is a heroin addict, and
Speaker 2: I very much understand that the person that people are
Speaker 2: when they are an addict, and I'm talking hard drug addict,
Speaker 2: the way that they behave and the things that they
Speaker 2: do aren't congruent with the person that they are at heart.
Speaker 2: And it makes you do fucking horrible things because you
Speaker 2: throw your ethics out the window, you throw your person
Speaker 2: at the window, because you are so hell bent on
Speaker 2: the next hit or the next It's like you lose
Speaker 2: a part of yourself to addiction. And I think there's
Speaker 2: something incredibly powerful about being able to drag yourself out
Speaker 2: of that hole, because not everybody has the ability to
Speaker 2: do that. But the honesty around it is something that
Speaker 2: I can see how hard it is for you to
Speaker 2: share it genuinely, I'm very very grateful for you sharing
Speaker 2: that part of your story.
Speaker 4: Well, it's the reality of it. I guess a lot
Speaker 4: of people think that addiction comes, you know, to be
Speaker 4: an addict or whatever, you have to come from a
Speaker 4: broken home or abuse or all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: I go up in a house with a mum, a dad,
Speaker 4: a brother, sister, surrounded by love. On paper, all the
Speaker 4: things that suggest that I should have been a happy, healthy,
Speaker 4: balanced kid adult in my life, but that just wasn't
Speaker 4: my experience. And the thing about addiction, and the thing
Speaker 4: that I've learned over the years of recovery and the
Speaker 4: people that I've met in recovery is addiction don't give
Speaker 4: a fuck who you are doesn't care. I don't care
Speaker 4: who yourmumm is, who your dad is, how much money
Speaker 4: at in the bank, what school or how smart you
Speaker 4: think you are. If it gets you, you got and
Speaker 4: it can take you places that well took me places
Speaker 4: that I didn't think I was capable of being. And
Speaker 4: it's not in this person that I see here today,
Speaker 4: Like I can't fathom doing those things. I just couldn't
Speaker 4: even imagine it.
Speaker 2: And there's so many families who deal with addiction in
Speaker 2: their family, whether it's a cousin, a sister, a brother,
Speaker 2: a son, and like a daughter, that there is so
Speaker 2: many families across Australia that addiction rips apart in different ways.
Speaker 2: What was the impact it had on your family?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, that you know, there's no rule book
Speaker 4: on how to raise any kid, let alone one that
Speaker 4: turns into a drug. Add it, and you know there'd
Speaker 4: been That's not something that they'd ever had in their lives,
Speaker 4: and so knowing where to go and to get the
Speaker 4: right help was really hard for them. And I know,
Speaker 4: you know, for many years they thought they were loving me,
Speaker 4: but they were just they were actually enabling me for
Speaker 4: a long long time. But I guess the impact on them,
Speaker 4: you know, my parents are one thing, but I think
Speaker 4: the impact that it had on my siblings who were
Speaker 4: younger than me, and what I stole from them and
Speaker 4: their childhood and their upbringing, you know, is horrendous and
Speaker 4: very traumatic for them.
Speaker 2: To has it impacted your relationship now with your siblings,
Speaker 2: It did for.
Speaker 4: A long time. You know, my brother and my sisters
Speaker 4: and I had a bigger gap when we're a kid
Speaker 4: is about eight years, so we probably weren't that close
Speaker 4: when we were younger. But my brother and I were
Speaker 4: very close and like I just did all the things
Speaker 4: that an adict did. You know, I lied to him,
Speaker 4: my style from him, and he watched what I did
Speaker 4: to my parents, and eventually he always loved me, but
Speaker 4: he hated me. He couldn't stand aside and me didn't
Speaker 4: want to know, he didn't want to be around me,
Speaker 4: and he was just so angry. And in the end
Speaker 4: he admitted that he was just terrified. He just was
Speaker 4: so scared that he was going to wake up one
Speaker 4: day and his sister was going to be dead.
Speaker 1: In what way were they enabling you? Because I know
Speaker 1: there'd be a lot of people listening right now that
Speaker 1: have no idea what to do, but all they want
Speaker 1: to do is help somebody with an addiction. So I'd
Speaker 1: love to know what that looks like, and then how
Speaker 1: you got to the point where they were able to
Speaker 1: help you and get you on the path of sobriety.
Speaker 4: It's super important. And I you know, I guess I
Speaker 4: knew all those years, and I got myself in all
Speaker 4: kinds of situations and whatever, but I always knew my
Speaker 4: mum would come and get me no matter what happened.
Speaker 4: And of course she would, She's my mum and she
Speaker 4: loved me. But you know, or I would get in
Speaker 4: a debt, or I would need money or whatever it
Speaker 4: might be, and they would just try and fix it
Speaker 4: for me. They would just go, yep, we'll fix it
Speaker 4: because you know I'd burn a relationship to the ground,
Speaker 4: and my mom and dad had come and got me
Speaker 4: and brought me home to Bendigo and set me up
Speaker 4: in a house and did all of these things where
Speaker 4: they just thought they were trying to help, but inevitably
Speaker 4: like that was enabling because I just knew that I'd
Speaker 4: be okay and I'd always land on my feet. And
Speaker 4: eventually they went and got their own help. They got
Speaker 4: really educated around addiction and the best way to support
Speaker 4: somebody in addiction, but also they went and got their
Speaker 4: own support as into how to take care of themselves
Speaker 4: and my brother and sister at the same time, and
Speaker 4: those two things combined really changed. I guess it really
Speaker 4: was the catalyst and one of the big things that
Speaker 4: changed to help me get better because my mom got shown,
Speaker 4: I guess, how to make really firm boundaries and then
Speaker 4: hold the boundaries and be like Kate, I'm here for
Speaker 4: you when you're ready to be right, and when you're ready,
Speaker 4: I'm here with open arms and I will always love you,
Speaker 4: but I'm not going to support you using anymore. So
Speaker 4: there's a lady in Melbourne who was a big part
Speaker 4: of saving my life. Her name's Belinda Walsh. She has
Speaker 4: a rehab called Sober Living Rehab, and that was where
Speaker 4: I went after my lockdown facility, and she really helped
Speaker 4: my family know where to draw the line. But I guess,
Speaker 4: of course, when you ring your mum and you say
Speaker 4: I'm starving, i've got no food, I've got a nearwhere
Speaker 4: to live, She's gonna wanna give you money. But the
Speaker 4: difference was she go, no worries, Kate, and nine times
Speaker 4: out of ten none of those things were true. I
Speaker 4: just wanted money, so she would go, no worries, Kate,
Speaker 4: I'll meet you at the supermarket and I'll buy your
Speaker 4: bag of groceries. And there's the difference. But yeah, professionals,
Speaker 4: I think getting somebody who knows how to show you
Speaker 4: how to love an addict to the way they need
Speaker 4: to be loved, not how they think they need to
Speaker 4: be loved, is the difference.
Speaker 2: There's something really different about your story in that so
Speaker 2: much of this happened on a public scale. I mean,
Speaker 2: so much addiction happens behind closed doors. It's really shameful.
Speaker 2: It's something that families don't talk about. When you as
Speaker 2: someone who is a public figure and you're dealing with
Speaker 2: this in your life and then the things that you
Speaker 2: do get splattered across the daily mail or whatever other
Speaker 2: publication has picked it up. How did you reconcile with
Speaker 2: that and with the public perception around the person that
Speaker 2: you were and where you were at in your life.
Speaker 4: Took It took time. It took a lot of healing,
Speaker 4: and but you know the thing at the end of
Speaker 4: the day that I need. I needed to make peace
Speaker 4: with my story for me first, and I guess that's
Speaker 4: a big part of the reason that I did the
Speaker 4: first season. And why do I feel this way Because
Speaker 4: every when I came out the other end, the public
Speaker 4: and the media, all they know is this girl from
Speaker 4: Australian id or got caught using drugs, selling drugs, whatever
Speaker 4: the hell I was doing, and weapons and all of
Speaker 4: that Lardi dar stuff. And then she disappeared and then
Speaker 4: I popped back up. However, many years later a different
Speaker 4: version of myself and everybody wanted a piece of that story.
Speaker 4: And I don't trust the media as far as I
Speaker 4: can kick them to share it. So of course, you know,
Speaker 4: it was my way of taking my power back and going, yeah,
Speaker 4: all those things did happen. I did do all those
Speaker 4: things and this is why, this is how it got there,
Speaker 4: and this is then how I got out. But you're
Speaker 4: one hundred percent right, Like, my story is actually not
Speaker 4: that outrageous. In the world of addiction, It's really common.
Speaker 4: I'm not nothing special, Like you hear my stories every
Speaker 4: day when you are in the circles of addiction and
Speaker 4: recovery and rehabs, like it's it's a run of the
Speaker 4: mill story. But I guess because I was in the
Speaker 4: public eye, it just seems so much more shocking.
Speaker 1: You don't need us to tell you this, but maybe
Speaker 1: you do. But I think it is special, And I
Speaker 1: don't think you are like every second person that's addicted,
Speaker 1: because not everyone pulls themselves out like you have and
Speaker 1: recreates their life and the story that they want. What
Speaker 1: was that recovery sobriety journey, like in terms of where
Speaker 1: their relapses? How long was it? Were you always in
Speaker 1: a rehab were you at home weaning off the drugs?
Speaker 4: So I did. I've had eight rehab admissions over the
Speaker 4: course of my addiction, and the first one I was
Speaker 4: about twenty four, and I was like, like, I'm you
Speaker 4: guys are gross, you know, And I heard all these
Speaker 4: stories about all this stuff and all these people do it,
Speaker 4: all of that, all of that wild stuff, and I
Speaker 4: was like, I'm just a younger, too much money. You
Speaker 4: guys got no idea. And I was warned that if
Speaker 4: I went back out, my life would turn to shit.
Speaker 4: And that did. But the last time that I went
Speaker 4: to rehab, something changed for me, and I just knew
Speaker 4: that I needed to hand over my life and my
Speaker 4: will to somebody else because my decision making and my
Speaker 4: best thinking got me to where it got me. So
Speaker 4: I just needed to accept that I had no capabilities
Speaker 4: of making any good choices for myself, and I just
Speaker 4: handed it over to the rehab and I did what
Speaker 4: I was told, essentially, and that was that I needed
Speaker 4: to just take my time and go slow, and I did.
Speaker 4: I didn't have a phone for a really long time.
Speaker 4: I didn't have social media for a really long time,
Speaker 4: because I just didn't have that space between thought and action.
Speaker 4: Like for a really long time, I was like, Yes,
Speaker 4: going to see somebody who's using drug seems like a
Speaker 4: really great idea, and I would believe that I can
Speaker 4: do it. Yeah, this, but no, I did not have anything.
Speaker 4: So this was a matter of taking my time and
Speaker 4: finding the right people to help me in my journey
Speaker 4: and trusting them with my life until I could be
Speaker 4: trusted with my life myself.
Speaker 3: Kate, how did it impact your friendships?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: God, I didn't have any friends by the time, you know,
Speaker 4: the true friends that I had over the course of
Speaker 4: my life, I'd pushed away because I was a shit
Speaker 4: person to be around and I didn't want them to
Speaker 4: see me in that way. And the people that I
Speaker 4: used with there were a lot of people that were
Speaker 4: just like me, you know, just people that had ended
Speaker 4: up there by chance. But I couldn't continue those friendships
Speaker 4: because it wasn't safe for me. So I literally cut
Speaker 4: my life. You know. I left the day that I
Speaker 4: went to Melbourne to go to rehab. You know, I left.
Speaker 4: I packed up my house with what little possessions I
Speaker 4: had left, gave them to my mom, changed my phone number,
Speaker 4: deleted my iCloud account so I couldn't retrack anybody, and
Speaker 4: started again.
Speaker 1: Is it an everyday battle as someone that was so addicted?
Speaker 1: Is there ever a time that comes where you don't
Speaker 1: consciously think about it anymore, or you know you can
Speaker 1: get on with your life without having to say to yourself,
Speaker 1: you're good, You've got this, or is it something that
Speaker 1: you never fully one hundred percent heal from.
Speaker 4: Well, I haven't thought that drugs and alcohol were a
Speaker 4: good idea or a solution to my life for a
Speaker 4: really long time. And I don't get up in the
Speaker 4: morning and think, fuck, I'd like to use drugs today.
Speaker 4: But I do. I do respect my addiction, and I
Speaker 4: know that I'm only a couple I'm always only a
Speaker 4: couple of shit decisions and mistakes away from picking up
Speaker 4: and that's my responsibility. And I take that really seriously,
Speaker 4: like it might not have been my fault or my
Speaker 4: choice to be an addict, but I'm in recovery and
Speaker 4: it's certainly one hundred percent my choice and my responsibility
Speaker 4: to stay clean. So I do a lot of things
Speaker 4: to maintain my sobriety so I don't end up back
Speaker 4: in a spot where I think that drugs is a solution.
Speaker 2: Can you talk us through a little bit around what
Speaker 2: were the steps that you implemented. I know you said
Speaker 2: you've blocked people you who were in the facility. How
Speaker 2: long were you in the facility for and what was
Speaker 2: kind of like the rules When you say you handed
Speaker 2: your life over to somebody else.
Speaker 3: To make the decisions for you. What were those decisions?
Speaker 4: So I'm a hopeless love addict too, So that was
Speaker 4: a big part of my recovery. Like not no men
Speaker 4: was a big one. Knew I needed time to know
Speaker 4: because sickness attracts sickness in relationships, so anyone that I
Speaker 4: was going to be in any kind of relationship probably
Speaker 4: wasn't that great either.
Speaker 3: It couldn't be well.
Speaker 4: So yeah, look, there was obviously that I didn't have
Speaker 4: social media. You know, I was really selective about who
Speaker 4: I spent time with, the places that I went, all
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff. Like I obviously wasn't going into
Speaker 4: bars or anything like that. But yeah, I just ran
Speaker 4: everything by somebody, a trusted person. And I know that
Speaker 4: sounds crazy, but as I said, I just couldn't trust myself.
Speaker 4: But I was in the rehab. I was in a
Speaker 4: lockdown hospital for six weeks, and then I was in
Speaker 4: like a transition house for about a year, maybe a
Speaker 4: bit more. And then I became a support worker in
Speaker 4: the rehab. So then I was sort of like a
Speaker 4: lead tenant and helped look after the new people that
Speaker 4: came in. I think so all Abaa was in treatment
Speaker 4: for a little over two years.
Speaker 2: If you're someone who can identify that you are an addict,
Speaker 2: whether it's drugs or alcohol or whatever, it is that
Speaker 2: the thing that someone is addicted to. Are you always
Speaker 2: an addict, even if you're in recovery. Is that always
Speaker 2: something that you will have a weakness to potentially fall
Speaker 2: back into if you are not making the conscious decisions
Speaker 2: and choices around your life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I believe so. I mean, some people don't like
Speaker 4: to identify as an addict after they get clean, and
Speaker 4: that's personal choice. But I'm an addict in recovery, and
Speaker 4: that's just how I'll always be an addict. And I
Speaker 4: have to watch, as I said to you, Like I
Speaker 4: when I put down the drugs, there was a whole
Speaker 4: range of other behaviors that I did addictively, and it
Speaker 4: was like whack a mole, you know. It was like
Speaker 4: I'd get one under control and I have to knocked
Speaker 4: the other one down. And that ranges from all the
Speaker 4: really scary ones like drugs, alcohol even get you to relationships,
Speaker 4: to shoppings. Like I'm a social media it destroys my life.
Speaker 4: You know, I cannot do it manageably. I just can't,
Speaker 4: which is a really hard one because it has to
Speaker 4: be a part of my life.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Do you think you were always that way or do
Speaker 1: you think this addiction to everything else in your life
Speaker 1: is a byproduct of being addicted to drugs and alcohol?
Speaker 4: When I look back over my life, as I said,
Speaker 4: I did everything addictively forever, which even as a kid,
Speaker 4: Even as a kid, by the age of five, I
Speaker 4: was lying and stealing and eating food in secret in
Speaker 4: a really shameful, strange way, like for no real reason.
Speaker 4: And well there was a reason, and I didn't know
Speaker 4: it at the time, but it was. I always was
Speaker 4: looking for something outside of myself to help self regulate
Speaker 4: and soothe the way that I felt. Then it started
Speaker 4: with food, and it progressed to boys, to money, to
Speaker 4: all the things over the years.
Speaker 1: You now are in a lovely relationship and you're a mum.
Speaker 1: How did you meet your partner?
Speaker 4: I met my partner online?
Speaker 1: So did I don't worry any people I've ever dated
Speaker 1: a bit online?
Speaker 4: Well, I just did. I'd been in a really inappropriate,
Speaker 4: quick relationship that was not well nor healthy, and again
Speaker 4: I just attracted the old same old Kate stuff, except
Speaker 4: I behaved. I recognized it and I got out of it,
Speaker 4: but it left me like hurting. So I was like,
Speaker 4: get online. I was online. I'll just try some dating sites.
Speaker 4: I was online for a day. It wiged me out,
Speaker 4: but I somehow ended up with this guy's number and
Speaker 4: it just happened quick mover.
Speaker 1: I was not there for ten years, and you do
Speaker 1: it for twenty four hours now.
Speaker 4: I was like there was too much. I was like,
Speaker 4: there's too many. I don't know what to do here.
Speaker 3: And I one do one just made.
Speaker 4: Me stop feeling shit about this other guy. And it
Speaker 4: turned out he was He was pretty good, so you know.
Speaker 4: And that was just before COVID and yeah, we just
Speaker 4: clicked and hit it off. And I guess COVID fast
Speaker 4: tracked our relationship as far as getting to know one another,
Speaker 4: because it was like, either we're going to hang out
Speaker 4: a lot or this is probably not going to work out.
Speaker 2: What was it like when you meet someone new and
Speaker 2: you have to talk about the person that you were.
Speaker 2: You've almost lived these two lives. Now you're like, this
Speaker 2: is the person I am, and this is the person
Speaker 2: I was. How do people receive that? And in particular,
Speaker 2: how did your partner receive that information.
Speaker 4: It's a tricky one because you don't want to go
Speaker 4: too far down a relationship starting a relationship and go
Speaker 4: oh yeah, by the way, all of these things that
Speaker 4: seems a bit unfair.
Speaker 3: You also don't want to open with it.
Speaker 4: No, that's not a good nick I'm okay now, but
Speaker 4: I also have the potential to be a crazy drug addicts.
Speaker 4: Really it's up to you. Yeah, but yeah, I gave
Speaker 4: him because obviously he was like he drank, which was well,
Speaker 4: he still does drink, which was an interesting one for me.
Speaker 4: I had to say, I don't drink, and these are
Speaker 4: the reasons why I didn't go into the depths of
Speaker 4: it to start with. And I guess as we got
Speaker 4: to know each other and things became more serious, I
Speaker 4: had to say, hey, this is why I don't drink,
Speaker 4: and these are the places that drinking can take me.
Speaker 4: And yeah, we just muddled our way through it, and
Speaker 4: now he knows all of it.
Speaker 1: Does it bother you now when he drinks.
Speaker 4: It can do. It doesn't bother me when he drinks necessarily,
Speaker 4: And he's one of those people that I don't understand
Speaker 4: in the world that can come home and have one
Speaker 4: beer and be done with it, Like I don't get
Speaker 4: people that can do that, but he's normal like that.
Speaker 4: But it can Like if we're like around Christmas time
Speaker 4: and those times there's lots of drinking and lots of
Speaker 4: socializing and lots of partying, it does get tiring. But
Speaker 4: we've just had to talk about that over the years
Speaker 4: and find a compromise to what works and I have
Speaker 4: so he doesn't feel like he's had to compromise who
Speaker 4: he is and I haven't had to compromise who I am.
Speaker 2: Kate, how has motherhood changed you. I feel like everybody
Speaker 2: goes through these massive transitions when they become a mum,
Speaker 2: but I can only imagine when you are juggling and
Speaker 2: have juggled such a huge self discovery, self identity shift,
Speaker 2: Like there's already been so many changes that it would
Speaker 2: impact you in ways that maybe it doesn't impact everyone.
Speaker 4: I thought I'd missed the chance to be your mum.
Speaker 4: I made one of the only sane, good choices that
Speaker 4: I made through my using was I made sure there
Speaker 4: was absolutely no way I was going to get pregnant
Speaker 4: because I didn't want to bring a little person into
Speaker 4: my chaos, like I felt, really and I know what happens,
Speaker 4: and I'm not judging anybody for that, but for me,
Speaker 4: it just was a really important thing that I destroyed
Speaker 4: my own life, but nobody else's, well, not somebody that
Speaker 4: I was responsible for anyway. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, look
Speaker 4: he's been He's taught me so much. I think it's
Speaker 4: the first time I've ever loved somebody more than myself.
Speaker 4: I had a notoriously really selfish people, and he's taught
Speaker 4: me so much about myself and also shown me how
Speaker 4: far I've come. Like I get up every morning and
Speaker 4: show up for this little person and it makes me
Speaker 4: emotional to say it still, but like I show for
Speaker 4: this little person really well every day, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. I would make mistakes or mums make mistakes.
Speaker 4: Is no, I'm not perfect. But yeah, he's changed my
Speaker 4: life in more ways than I think I'll ever understand.
Speaker 4: And also, I think the hardest one I lost my
Speaker 4: mum when I was thirty weeks pregnant with my son.
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4: I think that I understand her pain more than I
Speaker 4: ever ever could have. I think is I think the
Speaker 4: things that she did and the things she went through,
Speaker 4: and the extremes that she went through, and to I
Speaker 4: understand on a much deeper level.
Speaker 1: Makes you appreciate them a lot more when you're in
Speaker 1: that position and you know what you would do for
Speaker 1: your child.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I just I understand her on a
Speaker 4: whole other level.
Speaker 1: This could be really no stupid question. But does that
Speaker 1: level of drug abuse have any effect on fertility? Obviously
Speaker 1: your health overall it does, But is there any link
Speaker 1: directly between fertility.
Speaker 4: It wasn't for me. No, I've got polcistic ivaran syndrome.
Speaker 4: That was the only thing that was going to affect
Speaker 4: my fertility, and I was in was the healthiest and
Speaker 4: fittest I'd ever been in a normal way when I
Speaker 4: got pregnant, And I think, but look, I also know
Speaker 4: how lucky I am at the other end of addiction,
Speaker 4: like I've I have come out relatively unscathed with my
Speaker 4: health and my physical body. Obviously there was plenty of
Speaker 4: trauma that I had to muddle my way through, but
Speaker 4: like the medically, like I came out really lucky.
Speaker 2: What is something that you would lack people to understand
Speaker 2: about addiction who either may have judgment towards people who
Speaker 2: are addicts or may not. You know me listen to
Speaker 2: this and think, oh, this could never happen to me,
Speaker 2: or could never happen to people that I associate with.
Speaker 2: What would be the thing that you think most people
Speaker 2: would find surprising about addiction.
Speaker 4: Well, that's just simply not true. Like that's a really
Speaker 4: naive way of thinking. Like, you know, when you see
Speaker 4: an addict in the street, everyone's got a story. Nobody
Speaker 4: sat up in kindergarten put the hand up when the
Speaker 4: teacher said what do you want to be when you
Speaker 4: grow up? No one ever said I want to be
Speaker 4: a hopeless junkie and destroy mine and everybody's life. So
Speaker 4: no one ever did that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: There was a story, and there's a reason that they're there,
Speaker 4: and you don't know that. So treat them like you
Speaker 4: would how you'd want your daughter or your son, or
Speaker 4: your mom, or your relative or your best friend to
Speaker 4: be treated if they were in that position. You know,
Speaker 4: they're just people that are hurting and that need help.
Speaker 4: Doesn't mean that their behaviors are acceptable or excusable or
Speaker 4: any of that stuff. But you know, underneath all of
Speaker 4: that ugliness and shit is normally just a person in
Speaker 4: a shit ton of pain.
Speaker 1: What would you say to someone now? What advice would
Speaker 1: you give to someone that might be in a really
Speaker 1: dark time or starting to or be in the depths
Speaker 1: of addiction.
Speaker 4: As long as your two feet are on the ground,
Speaker 4: there's always hope. Doesn't matter how far down the hole
Speaker 4: you go, or how many mistakes or how much shit
Speaker 4: you've last or whatever you've done. Like, it's never too
Speaker 4: late and there's always hoping. There is help. Find your people.
Speaker 4: I think the best thing happen. All that was great
Speaker 4: for me, but finding a community of people. They say,
Speaker 4: back to that study that they did with the rat
Speaker 4: they say, the opposite of addiction is connection. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: the best thing I did was find a community of
Speaker 4: people that got me, didn't judge me, that I could
Speaker 4: talk about who I was and what I was going
Speaker 4: through and what was going through my crazy brain and
Speaker 4: they just met me with love and acceptance. So find
Speaker 4: your people that you can talk to and that get
Speaker 4: you and you you know, that's the first.
Speaker 2: Stepkay, Can you tell us what role music plays in
Speaker 2: your life now? After all these years and everything that
Speaker 2: you've been through, what impact does it still have for you?
Speaker 4: So it fills my cup these days. I when I
Speaker 4: came out of you know, addiction, every like you're going
Speaker 4: to get back into music was absolutely fucking not like.
Speaker 4: I hate that. Don't even talk to me about music
Speaker 4: ever again. And I really hated it when I first
Speaker 4: came out. And then I just started I didn't want
Speaker 4: to know about it. I just started to do it
Speaker 4: for me and you know, for fun and for joy,
Speaker 4: and I realized how much I love it, and I
Speaker 4: realized that I'm pretty good at it, which only took
Speaker 4: me fifteen years and a whole lot of shit to
Speaker 4: come to realize. But you know, and it brings other
Speaker 4: people joy to so I do it when I can
Speaker 4: however I can. I don't. I don't have any great
Speaker 4: desires to change the world or to you know, sell
Speaker 4: number one singles. I don't live for that anymore. Other
Speaker 4: things drive me now, and work around addiction and being
Speaker 4: able to help people in that space is really important
Speaker 4: to me these days. Makes it all worth something, I guess.
Speaker 4: But yeah, music just brings me joy in whatever capacity
Speaker 4: I get to do it.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you've reached a place where you
Speaker 2: truly feel like you can be happy in the life
Speaker 2: that you've created for yourself.
Speaker 4: Now, yeah, I do for the most part. You know,
Speaker 4: life is life, and life is shit sometimes and everybody
Speaker 4: goes through times that hurt and life throws curveballs and
Speaker 4: all of that kind of stuff. But for the most part,
Speaker 4: I wake up every day happy with who I am,
Speaker 4: happy with my life. You know, I don't feel the
Speaker 4: need to run away from my life and who I
Speaker 4: am anymore. And you know, even when the shit does
Speaker 4: come up in my life, if I feel like I
Speaker 4: manage it with dignity and grace to the best of
Speaker 4: my ability. And I couldn't from a hopeless junkie in
Speaker 4: the bathroom six and a half years ago, like to
Speaker 4: be the person that I am now is a miracle.
Speaker 4: So I'm just grateful for my life.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sharing today, because I can't
Speaker 1: fathom how hard that is to just be so open
Speaker 1: and raw about the lowest time in your life. And
Speaker 1: you have done so with such grace and with the
Speaker 1: purpose of helping other people, and that's truly a remarkable thing.
Speaker 1: So thank you for being so vulnerable and open.
Speaker 4: Oh thanks girls, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Kate.
Speaker 2: We will link all of the details and also your
Speaker 2: podcast in the show notes as well, but genuinely thank
Speaker 2: you so much for coming and being a part of
Speaker 2: the podcast.
Speaker 5: Thanks The company appeared the Wepy Areas the by the
Speaker 5: Bi