...KERRY O'BRIEN: You're very candid in the book about your period with heroin. You say, "Heroin was the one for me." You single out all the other drugs that were available, but you say, "Heroin was the one for me." It sounds like for a long time you told yourself you could use it, enjoy it, without succumbing to it. Is that right?
PAUL KELLY: Yeah. Well, it was - I had a relationship on and off with heroin for 20 years. Again, as I was saying before, when you - I didn't realise for a while that I was writing a memoir and once I realised I was, I realised certain things had to be spoken about.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Because it was so much a part of your life for that long.
PAUL KELLY: Well a part of my life.
KERRY O'BRIEN: A part of my life.
PAUL KELLY: But my sort of other rough rule of thumb for what stayed in the book and what wasn't was whether it was interesting, whether this particular chapter is an interesting piece of writing. And I thought I had something to say about heroin that was different to the usual narrative. I mean, you hear people - the usual sort of story of heroin is either a tragedy or redemption, you know. You go down with it, you don't get up; or you go down and you come up and you got the redemption story. And I thought there was - I just thought there was another story there.
KERRY O'BRIEN: And what is it?
PAUL KELLY: That, you know, people do use hard drugs recreationally and not all the time, that people can use drugs like heroin without having a habit. I never did. And that, at some point, you weigh up the costs against the benefits and at some point you think, "The costs are getting too much; I'll stop."
KERRY O'BRIEN: And what were the costs in the end for you?
PAUL KELLY: Um ... oh, there's a lot of costs. There's ...
KERRY O'BRIEN: You talk about the fact that towards the end, the coming down, that the coming down was taking much longer, that it was harder to come off it each time. That's the way I read it.
PAUL KELLY: I think it's like most drugs, including alcohol. You know, when you're young you can drink 20 beers in a night and get up the next day and play football. But, you know, I can't drink that much anymore without feeling the effects of it. So it's the same with any kind of drug. I think as you get older, you get - the toll gets - you can't go at it so hard.
KERRY O'BRIEN: But you - whether it was just that heroin was illicit or whether you felt something else about it, felt uncomfortable about it anyway I'm not sure, but for a long time there you were hiding it from others. You hid it from friends and family and colleagues, but you say that after a certain time you knew that they knew, that the - it was becoming obvious to people when you were using heroin.
PAUL KELLY: Yeah, I think - I mean, it's - I don't know whether it's a particular trait of heroin or just other drugs, but I think it is a kind of brainwasher so you sort of think you're getting away with it. And if you have any sorta clarity about it, you start to realise, well, you're not.
KERRY O'BRIEN: I've talked with James Taylor about his experience with heroin. He said that for him it was self-medication for depression, but that in the end it was too narrow, too stultifying. "I felt as though I lived on a postage stamp," he said. Does that ring any bells for you?
PAUL KELLY: Like I said, I think I had a different experience. I didn't ...
KERRY O'BRIEN: So you didn't come to it as a prop, you didn't come to it as an escape. For you it was - you were introduced to it as a recreational drug and that's how you saw yourself using it.
PAUL KELLY: Yeah. For a long time it worked like that.
KERRY O'BRIEN: So have you ever talked to your own kids about that experience? What would you - have you ever said to them, "I'd be relaxed if you tried it," or, "My advice to you is stay away?"
PAUL KELLY: Ohh, yeah, well, my conversations with my children is probably not something I wanna talk about. I'm sorry, Kerry.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Well then let me put to it you this way: what would you now say to others who might consider using heroin?
PAUL KELLY: Ah, I wouldn't say anything at all. I think the last thing the world needs is pop sinners (sic) giving advice.
KERRY O'BRIEN: You're more than a pop singer.
PAUL KELLY: Well I'm certainly not someone who wants to give advice to people I don't know.
KERRY O'BRIEN: How hard was it to walk away from when you did?
PAUL KELLY: Not that hard.
KERRY O'BRIEN: You don't occasionally still miss it?
PAUL KELLY: Not anymore...
Despite Kerry O'Brien's intentions it was so refreshing to have a well respected Australian talk some sense about drugs (that we are NOT all the same) and as we are in the middle of Grand Final week here in Melbourne, chances are that 'the tabloid' won't pick up on this!
