I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! star reveals battle with alcohol addiction
I’m a Celebrity’s Dilruk Jayasinha has recalled his devastating alcohol addiction and his three-year battle to reclaim his life and identity.
Confidential
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Logie award-winning actor Dilruk Jayasinha has detailed the extent of his battle with alcohol addiction.
The Sri Lankan-born comedian stars on the current season of I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here and he told campmates this week that he would often get blackout drunk and find sneaky ways to combat hangovers.
“What happened with hangovers is I found ways around it, so I’d come home even if I was blackout drunk... and I’d wake up in the morning and I can’t find my wallet, but on the kitchen benchtop was my hangover cure,” Jayasinha said.
“Like, I’ve done it in the night. Where it was like orange juice, Berocca and Gatorade powder, so I’d make a little concoction. That’s when you start to go ‘whoa, I’m making so many different adjustments just to keep doing this’.”
The Utopia star said his life spiralled out of control before he finally quit drinking three years ago. It was through therapy that he was able to identify his triggers.
“Through three years of therapy, I’ve figured out where that came from, why the numbness was required,” Jayasinha, 34, said.
“For me it was the lack of confidence. Being unconfident because I thought I was fat and ugly and wasn’t cool enough.
“So weirdly, losing the weight only happened after I accepted my entire self, it’s because I like myself now, its all of this, that I am willing to now be careful with what I eat or be conscious of what I eat and also do a bit of exercise. Whereas in the past, because I hated it so much, I was like ‘I’m a piece of sh*t I don’t deserve to treat myself well, because I am a piece of sh*t’.”
In a preview for Wednesday night’s episode, Jayasinha told campmates that he was bullied as a child.
“I moved to a new class, it was about 40 students and I was at the back of the class by myself and I was a big kid and I got given the nickname ‘the lonely elephant’,” he recalled.
The TV personality said maintaining his sobriety has been challenging because drinking is so ingrained in Australian culture.
“It was really hard for me for a long time, because it was my identity in Australia. Like that’s how all my friends.. all the good things in my life start with booze, without a shadow of doubt, I know all of it starts with a big piss up,” he said.
“But I also kind of wish I was able to stop at three and I can’t. I just have to accept that.”
Jayasinha is among 13 contestants competing in gruelling tasks over six weeks for $100,000 to be donated to their chosen charity.