Remember Ian “Dicko” Dickson? Of course you do.
The Australian Idol icon – who has long battled alcohol addiction – will soon be back on our tellies as one of six celebrities who spent 28 days visiting Indigenous communities in Northern Australia for SBS‘s upcoming series ‘First Contact’.
But Dicko’s now admitted that the trauma of what he saw during just 24 hours of filming in Kununurra, where the community is rife with alcoholism, family violence and suicide, drew him back to the bottle after months of sobriety.
“It took me one day filming to get back on the piss,” he told news.com.au. “I found it too hard to deal with without the help of a bottle of red.”
He’d spent the night at the town’s sobering-up shelter, including riding on a night patrol bus that picks up intoxicated locals to make sure they don’t drive, when he turned to alcohol.
“Once I exposed myself to the lives of these people I was incapable of dealing with it without drinking. Pathetic, isn’t it?”
It’s a reality check for Dicko who, before he started filming the Ray Martin-hosted show, made on-the-nose comments about alcohol abuse among Aboriginals – saying flat out that, if he can quit drinking, anyone can.
“Everyone’s capable of getting off their arse and taking responsibility for their own life and the people around them,” he said at the time.
Now he cops to being a “pompous wanker” for making the statements he did, having seen the hardships Indigenous communities faces first-hand, so that’s something.
You can catch the first episode of First Contact tonight at 8:30pm, on SBS, where Dicko is joined by Tom Ballard, Natalie Imbruglia, ex-One Nation pollie David Oldfield, beauty queen Renae Ayris and actor Nicki Wendt.
Source: news.com.au.
Photo: SBS.
