Rita Panahi: Derryn Hinch in troubled waters due to relationship with bottle
IT’S not “bunny boiler treatment” that has landed Derryn Hinch in troubled waters, it’s his own relationship with the bottle, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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SORRY, Derryn, but it’s not “bunny boiler treatment” that has landed you in troubled waters, it’s your relationship with the bottle.
Scrutiny follows when an alcoholic isn’t clear about their drinking, particularly if the alcoholic happens to be a liver transplant recipient and an Australian senator.
It’s a simple matter of trust.
How can we be certain that Hinch’s drinking is under control when within a few hours he’s gone from a reformed non-drinker to the “odd glass of wine, perhaps one-third wine and two-thirds water” at birthdays and Christmas to being a habitual drinker who indulges on a regular basis.
Hinch admitted yesterday that he consumes alcohol a couple of times a week and that his drinking has been cleared by his surgeon.
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That assessment seems to go against the prevailing medical opinion that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption for a recovering alcoholic; one drink means you’ve fallen off the wagon.
It’s also contrary to what is expected of liver transplant recipients who must prove their sobriety before being considered a candidate for a new liver.
“If you’re lucky enough to get on a list for a liver transplant and get one, the counselling is universal,” said President of the Australian Liver Association Mike Ahern.
“You’ve got to accept firstly that you’re an alcoholic. You can’t say, ‘a liver has been given to me, great I can start all over again’. You can’t do that.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s light or heavy wine or rum or anything else. If it’s got any alcohol in it, even cough mixture, you’ve got to stop all of that.”
To err is human and most Australians can understand a long term alcoholic slipping-up but it is imperative that Hinch is clear with his constituents, his friends and himself.
This is a man who cheated death five years ago and is only alive today after a liver transplant gave him a second chance at life.
He’s come perilously close to death on more than one occasion; the chief anaesthetist at his 2011 operation admitted to him recently that he came close to “turning him off”.
“According to my surgeon, Bob Jones, I died on the table,” Hinch told me earlier this year.
“I’ve held my own liver, I asked the doc, ‘Have you seen many as bad as that?’ and he said, ‘Usually at autopsies’.
“He said I had maybe two weeks left.”
DERRYN HINCH FIVE YEARS ON FROM LIVER TRANSPLANT
A few years earlier, after almost dying from blood poisoning, Hinch vowed that he’d never touch another drop of liquor again.
“I don’t drink now, never will again. If I get a titanium liver, I still won’t drink again,’’ he said.
It is not too much to expect every single organ recipient to do everything reasonably possible to maintain their good health particularly if they ended up needing a transplant because of their own recklessness.
The latest saga engulfing Hinch, who has been married and divorced five times, began late Sunday night when social media posts, that were soon deleted, revealed the veteran newsman turned politician was back on the grog.
Hinch’s messy breakup with Natasha Chadwick, a woman half his age, led to her posting a series of tweets about her former partner’s drinking and alleged duplicity.
No one can accuse the Human Headline of not living up to his name.
In the few short weeks since being sworn in as Australia’s oldest junior senator he has managed to break parliamentary rules, get a fast food outlet to change their hiring policy, use parliamentary privilege to name paedophiles, spark romance rumours with kooky Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie and is now front page news for his “booze shame”.
Derryn is a larger than life personality. I believe he is an asset to the senate and can make a real contribution to the political discourse in this country.
Australians will forgive him for drinking again, even if medical experts tell us that recovering alcoholics should never touch the stuff again, but we shouldn’t be so quick to forgive him labelling his former lover a “bunny boiler”.
“Look I’m getting a taste ... of a bit of bunny boiler treatment here, I was told: ‘I’ll get you’ and my ex-partner has got me. She got what she wanted to’,” Hinch said on 3AW yesterday.
There’s a fair dose of self-serving misogyny in that statement. Hinch should be better than that. While most may be critical of Ms Chadwick for airing their dirty laundry on social media, her revelations nevertheless highlight an important issue that is in the public interest.
Simply shooting the messenger is not the answer.
The Herald Sun understands that Ms Chadwick has told friends that Hinch’s drinking is far worse than what he has publicly admitted to and that she is deeply concerned for his wellbeing.
We all want Derryn around for many years to come. I hope this saga serves as a wakeup call and he again swears off the grog permanently.
It’s utter madness to risk your second chance at life for light beers and watered down wine.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist
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