Aussie boxer Luke Jackson’s hard fight for survival outside the ring
Luke Jackson “hated” his childhood. He was living alone by age 13, addicted to drugs, robbing houses and had a mate get killed. This is his story of survival.
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Murder, suicides, drug use, robberies.
By the time Luke Jackson was 13, living alone in the unforgiving Hobart suburb of Clarendon Vale, he’d experienced it all.
“Growing up, it was very chaotic, something that I don’t miss at all. I’ve never wished I was a kid again,” Jackson said.
“I hated myself, hated it a lot of the time.
“There was a lot of damage going on in my childhood, a lot of violence, alcohol, drugs, people killing themselves, my mate getting killed.
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“I just remember as a kid waking up in the middle of the night, coming out of my room, a different man in the lounge room, partying with my mum because my mum and dad had split up. And so there was always parties at my mum’s house and always different guys there.
“I remember me and my sister running out of the house. There was an argument of some sort and I remember sitting outside our house down the road and putting socks on our hands because we were cold.”
Jackson’s sister was kicked out for drug use, so he left to live with his father.
His dad then met his second wife and moved in with her, leaving the adolescent to live alone for most of the time.
“I lived by myself, would get off my head on weed and clean the house like I was mad, crazy, cleaning the house for hours,” said Jackson, who at the time wasn’t aware he had obsessive compulsive disorder.
“And since I grew up by myself, no one knew what I was doing.
“I was doing a lot of weed — that was my drug. I have a photo of me with an ounce of weed and a bong and ciggies next to my bed. My mum bought everything, she took the photo. And I was taking dexie (Dexedrine) for ADHD. My sister had had that so I used to take them.
“I left school in seventh grade and I started working for my dad, doing asbestos removal.
“I had big drug and booze benders every week and I managed to pay for it somehow.
“I was robbing C … s, robbing houses, cars.
“One of my best mates got killed, he got stabbed outside his nan’s house where we grew up.”
Substance abuse was an escape from the dark tragedies that would forge Jackson’s ongoing battle with depression.
“My mum’s boyfriend when I was younger, he used to kick the football with me. His name was Graham — a very good guy, used to give me a lot of time,” Jackson said.
“And he was always wearing sunglasses.
“One day he left and his sunglasses were on mum’s kitchen table, which is where they always partied around.
“And he hung himself. I believe he left the sunglasses there because that was his way of telling my mum.
“And then my sister’s dad, Danny, he killed himself as well. I don’t know who did it first, but it was within a few months of each other. So it was something I thought, that when s. t gets hard, that’s just what you do, that’s what adults do.
“So I thought about these people when I was growing up and I thought of killing myself a lot. It’s weird how these things get planted in your head as a kid.”
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Having been isolated for so long through his teens, Jackson craved attention.
He noticed local boxers in Hobart receive adulation after fights and, at 18, took up the sport. Jackson excelled and by 2006 had earned a Commonwealth Games bronze medal.
He was then Australia’s boxing captain at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi and led the team at the 2012 Olympic Games in the lightweight division.
“I just made the Olympic Games, 2012, all these years later, and I’m laying in bed thinking about how to tie a noose and kill myself,” he said.
“It turns out it was an obsessive thought I had because I suffer from OCD. So I thought about suicide a lot. I used to drive with my eyes shut, from one lamp post to the next.
“I used to have this crossbow. I’d get drunk and I’d sit there, put it in my mouth and egg myself to pull the trigger.
“I was sick in the head. That’s why I missed out on the Beijing Olympics (2008).”
Jackson turned professional in 2013, but the mental monsters from his childhood continued to lurk.
“I spoke to a doctor and he said I had anxiety, so he put me on some pills and they helped a bit, from 2008 to 2015,” he said.
“Then things started unravelling for me again and in 2015 I took all these pills and actually tried to do it, tried to end it.
“That’s when I got taken to the Rokeby (mental health) clinic and saw a doctor named Michael Davie, and he just dissected me, broke me down and back up and figured out everything about me now. He’s helped save my life.”
Jackson went on to build a 16-0 record before facing Englishman Carl Frampton for the WBO featherweight title in 2018, losing via a ninth-round technical knockout, his only defeat in the ring as a pro.
He scored three successive wins before he felt his career flatline last September.
On December 6, Jackson was in the crowd for Tim Tszyu’s fight against Jack Brubaker in Darling Harbour.
Leaving the ICC Exhibition Centre, having seen the bright lights and buzz of a fight night he believed he’d never experience again, Jackson went on an alcohol and cocaine binge and laid out a table full of pills for his second suicide attempt.
“I had all these tablets there ready to take and my mate Nate Carroll knew something was up. He was the one that helped me that day. At the fight I was OK but that night I found out some news that pushed me over the edge,” Jackson said.
“I just wanted to end the pain, I was in a state of self-sabotage. Looking back at where I’ve come from, I can understand, it’s the easy option. When s. t gets hard, I fall into it.”
Now 35, Jackson has not fought for 15 months.
But under the guidance of new trainers Fidel Tukel and Adam Thompson, the featherweight has been reinvigorated and coincidentally will be the first Main Event undercard fight against Tyson Lantry when Tszyu fights Bowyn Morgan at Bankwest Stadium next Wednesday night.
“I feel Fidel and Thommo have my best interests at heart and have my back,” he said.
“I get emotional thinking about these guys. Fidel did not have to do any of this, it’s incredible how many hours a week he’s putting into me. He’s got a wife and kids and he’s running a business, and he spent a lot of time on me and I’ll never forget it.
“These guys are just genuine people that love and care about me.”
While Jackson still carries the scars from his childhood, he has also learned to forgive.
“I’ve had a s---ty upbringing, but I made good from it, I love all my family,” he said.
“I don’t judge anyone. My dear mum has been in hospital for six weeks and she needs oxygen masks to breathe, she’s got a bowel issue. I just want her to be happy and I don’t judge her. She was going through her s--t.
“Everyone is dealing with their own stuff, all different shapes and sizes, all of the issues, and this is one thing I’ve had to learn.
“I love my mum. I love my dad. I love my nan. She is sick as well and I want to go and see my family and my friends after this fight. I am in a good zone — this is the best version of Luke Jackson right now.”
Feel the need to talk? Call: Lifeline 13 11 14; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636; Immediate help 1300 659 467.
JACKSON: KEEP FIGHTING
This time last year, after a Tim Tszyu fight, boxer Luke Jackson planned to kill himself.
On Wednesday, at Bankwest Stadium in Parramatta, Jackson will return to the ring in the first Main Event undercard bout as Tszyu takes on Kiwi Bowyn Morgan.
Jackson has opened up on his traumatic childhood and lifelong battle with mental health, hoping to encourage those with similar struggles to punch through the darkness.
“My advice to anyone going through these thoughts, is just get through the next hour,” Jackson said.
“When shit is bad, just get through that next hour, because times can change, and I’m proof of it.
“I was a broken man a year ago, very low, I was about to neck myself.
“Just keep fighting, get through the hour, and before you know it, a day has gone by, a week, a month, and then a year. Look at me now.
“A lot can change in an hour. Stay off the drugs and alcohol, and that’s half your problems sorted already. Get in the gym, and you’re on the way to being the best version of you.”
In May this year, as people struggled with isolation and fear under COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and job losses, Jackson took action in the most extraordinary way.
The 35-year-old Olympian vowed to run a torturous self-devised “5-5-75 challenge”; five miles (eight kilometres) every five hours for 75 hours to raise money and awareness.
Jackson ran the course from Wolloomooloo through Sydney’s CBD and up to Kings Cross a total of 15 times from 9am on Thursday, May 21 to completion at 7.40am on Sunday, May 24 – a total of 120km over three days in around 10 hours’ running time.
He raised $15,000 for suicide prevention organisation Livin.
“My childhood was shit, I had no love, no structure, no one showed me how to do anything,’ Jackson said.
“Boxing taught me everything. Boxing taught me to eat well, go to bed early, how to be respectful and speak to people.
“My mum was an alcoholic, still is, God bless her soul. My dad was busy working and with his family.
“I lived by myself, so I had to figure out a lot by myself.
“And I found out that I have a very strong will. When I’m determined, I can do anything.”
Feel the need to talk? Call: Lifeline 13 11 14; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636; Immediate help 1300 659 467.
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