Ex-Australian Idol winner marks five years sober

Australian Idol 2005’s winner Kate DeAraugo has clawed her way out of drug addiction and now is looking forward to using that experience for new music.

Former Australian Idol winner Kate DeAraugo has emerged from the horror of drugs, addiction, police, courts rooms and scandalous headlines to mark five years of being “clean and sober.”

DeAraugo, who triumphed in Australian Idol in 2005, hit rock bottom in 2017 when she was caught possessing ice. In December of that year she avoided conviction by pleading guilty to possessing ice, drug driving and weapons offences and was placed on a community corrections order. Her run in with the law and publicity that surrounded it was a turning point in her life.

“I’m five years clean and sober,” she told Shannon Noll’s Idol Talking podcast.

“Addiction is a topic that should be talked about really openly and I think still in this country we are not very educated about it.

DeAraugo (left) hit rock bottom in 2017 when she was caught possessing ice.

“Unless you know somebody, or you have been through it yourself, it is something that is really hard for some people to understand.

“My life went on a bit of a left field journey and I did some things and went some places that I never wanted to, or did not intend to, but it is just where life led me.

“Coming back from that, having to really turn around and stop and look at yourself and look at your life and take responsibility for your life decisions is probably the hardest and most terrifying thing I have ever done.

“A lot of people don’t get to come back from where I got to and I just feel really grateful that I (have).”

Kate DeAraugo gave birth to her first child, Hudson, in November last year. Picture: Supplied

DeAraugo gave birth to her first child, a son, Hudson, in November.

She plans to draw on the experiences of her off the rails days for new music she is writing.

“One of the things I did not get a lot of opportunity to do in the early days of Idol was write my own music,” she said.

“I have some stuff to say. I have done some living and seen some things and been some places, and I am excited to put pen to paper and write some new stuff.

“To have gone on that adventure that I have been on and to have come out the other side, your perspective becomes a little bit different.

“I used to care so much about what everybody thought and it would destroy me if I could not keep everybody happy, or (if) every comment on the internet wasn’t positive.

“I have been able to come out after doing a lot of work and know I am more than those negative comments …. I just come from a different place now.”