Jackie ‘O’ Henderson has revealed the shock extent of her drug and alcohol addiction in images taken moments before her rehab stint.
Images of the 49-year-old radio star, who checked into the Betty Ford Clinic for drug and alcohol addiction in 2022, show her sitting in the gutter of a car park outside the admissions office as she smokes her last cigarette while awaiting the results of a Covid test.
Another image shows Jackie flying business class as she travels ‘incognito on the way to California and rehab’.
The never-before-seen pictures have been unveiled in her new memoir, The Whole Truth, which chronicles the radio star’s extensive drug use.
In the memoir, Jackie explains she started taking ‘codeine pills with a glass of wine’ in a bid to escape reality.
‘It was casual at first, until it wasn’t. Truth be told, while over the years when times got tough, I’d go to the chemist and grab myself some Nurofen Plus to take the edge off, now it was different,’ she writes.
‘To experience any kind of high, I had been taking roughly ten Nurofen Plus tablets at once for years. Now that I was deeper into my addiction, I was taking that much three or four times a day.’
Jackie admitted her addiction began taking a turn for the worse following her divorce from Lee Henderson, to whom she married from 2003 until 2018.
Shocking images show Jackie ‘O’ Henderson sitting in the gutter of a car park outside the Betty Ford Clinic in California as she smokes her last cigarette before being admitted
The divorce saw her spending less time with daughter Kitty, now 13, which made her suffer with excruciating bouts of sadness and loss.
‘In an attempt to cope with the loneliness and guilt I was feeling, I made another bad decision. I began taking sleeping pills — Stilnox — on the days I was alone, as a way to numb the loneliness,’ she continues.
‘It was a coward’s way of dealing with my pain, finding comfort in what was slowly becoming an addiction.’
At the time, in 2018, the Australian government began cracking down on purchasing over-the-counter painkillers — putting a stop to codeine being purchased without a prescription.
Another image shows Jackie flying business class as she travels ‘incognito on the way to California and rehab’
Jackie shares the room she stayed in, where she went through ‘distinctive’ withdrawals
It wasn’t long before Jackie managed to get her hands on a ‘stronger codeine painkiller’, Panadeine Forte, through a contact and began taking ‘fewer tablets for the same high’.
The former Masked Singer judge began tapering her use on days she would have her daughter, but her body had already become reliant on the drugs.
‘If I went several hours without them, my hands would begin to tremble and shake. I’d get chills and stomach cramps, and nausea and diarrhoea would set in far quicker than you’d imagine,’ Jackie says.
‘If I didn’t want to feel dizzy and faint, I needed something to get me through.’
Elsewhere in her memoir, the radio star details the great lengths she would go to conceal her addiction from friends and explained how she would hide and dispose of the empty pill packets kept in her home.
Jackie admitted her addiction began taking a turn for the worse following her divorce from Lee Henderson, who she married in 2003 before separating in 2018. Pictured together in 2007
‘I didn’t want to put them in a bin… I kept them all in a white plastic bag instead, and then at the end of two weeks I would dump my disgrace into a random bin on the way to work,’ she adds.
The media star went on to open up about her rapid weight gain during the peak of her addiction, which she says was brought on by drinking ‘a bottle of wine’ or a gin and tonic, all while taking Stilnox, then ordering UberEats ‘every day’ during Covid.
One Sunday morning, where Jackie woke up to remnants of her UberEats order from the night before on the floor beside her bed along with a half-empty glass of gin and tonic and cigarettes in an ashtray, her supplier called to tell her they’d been ‘busted’ and could no longer supply her with painkillers.
She confided in her best friend, Gemma O’Neill, who quickly checked Jackie into the Betty Ford Clinic, located two hours from Los Angeles.
Jackie announced her break from the Kyle & Jackie show before she and Gemma flew to California together, with the radio host wearing a cap, glasses and a face mask to conceal her identity for the long-haul flight.
Jackie details her detox experience inside the clinic and the withdrawals she felt during the first week of rehab.
‘I wasn’t vomiting or shaking, but for a good ten days I experienced some distinctive aftershocks. A skin-crawling anxiety. A twitching discomfort. A restless confusion,’ she writes.
When Jackie took her break from the show in 2022, her co-host Kyle Sandilands told listeners she was stepping away to ‘focus on her health’ after contracting COVID-19.
The Whole Truth by Jackie ‘O’ Henderson is available in stores and online now
Jackie admitted she was ashamed of her secret, fearing public judgement, and decided to get help after hitting rock bottom.
She also revealed she asked permission from her daughter Kitty to share her story publicly and praised her for treating her with ‘compassion’.
‘I couldn’t be more proud of my daughter, the way she has been about it has been zero judgement, just compassionate and support,’ Jackie said.
Jackie said she wanted to publicly speak about her addiction battle to reduce the ‘stigma’ around drug dependence and ‘normalise’ it.
The presenter apologised to listeners for not revealing her health struggles before and revealed she will be marking two years of sobriety in a matter of weeks.
‘I want to apologise to our listeners and everyone in my life […] I just needed to concentrate on that part first, that recovery,’ she said.
The Whole Truth by Jackie ‘O’ Henderson is available in stores and online now.
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