‘Why didn’t I know my dad needed my help?’

DAVID Campbell knows what it means to be the child of an addict. And yet he was completely taken aback to learn his father, Jimmy Barnes, tried to take his own life.

David Campbell: “Reading about my dad trying to take his life took my breath away.” (Pic: Steven Chee)

LIFE’S too short for burning bridges... It’s not an easy email to read, when a parent reveals a suicide attempt to you. As has recently been well documented, the above is the subject of the opening chapter of my dad’s latest book [Jimmy Barnes’s Working Class Man] and it makes for harrowing reading.

When I first read the chapter on email, I have to admit it took my breath away. I can completely understand his childhood and the damage that has done to him.

For decades now, we as a family have had to privately watch him struggle with an addiction that could have made him another rock’n’roll statistic.

Reading his book, I am even more acutely aware of his internal pain and the fact that his addiction was in fact a long slow attempt on his own life. Right in front of our eyes. In slow motion. All we could do was bear witness.

“For decades now, we as a family have had to privately watch him struggle with an addiction that could have made him another rock’n’roll statistic.” (Pic: Nigel Lough)

The recounting of that night in New Zealand is hard for me to read. Mainly because that thing inside of him, which had been driving him to inflict such damage on himself for so long, took over. It was finally let loose and thankfully, for whatever reason, was unsuccessful.

My mind races to my children. How would they have coped with the news that he was gone? And how do I explain to them that when this happened in 2012, I had no idea the struggle for him was all too real?

He masks it so well. You see, aside from music, the project he has most successfully dedicated himself to working on, is that of being a high-functioning addict. Sometimes he seems worse for wear, yet most of the time he is his usual charming self.

Were there signs I should have seen? Was I too busy with my own career? My own children? Had my healthy distance — which I had used at times to protect myself when necessary — been too distant? Could I have called him more? Should I have believed his “I am great, better than I have ever been” mantra less?

David Campbell’s column features in Stellar magazine.

I am not stupid. I have read about addiction. About being the child of an addict. I have seen him at his worst. Shouldn’t I have guessed that this was there?

Yet you can never really know. Whether it’s a parent, a lover or a child. All you can do is try your best.

You can’t enable them but you can support them. You can tell them you love them. How important they are, not just to you, but to your kids too.

So we are lucky.

My old man continues to move forward and force himself to confront his demons. To change and grow. He does this publicly and privately. Even in his darkest hour he inspires.

Like the song says... Take it one day at a time.

David co-hosts Today Extra, 9am weekdays, on the Nine Network. Lifeline: 13 11 14.

Originally published as ‘Why didn’t I know my dad needed my help?’