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NEWS: The Age - 04/05/08 'Barnes' binge: cheap wine and 10 grams of coke'

hoptis

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Barnes' binge: cheap wine and 10 grams of coke
Christine Sams
May 4, 2008

JIMMY Barnes can't believe he lived through a death-defying drug-and-booze binge, which, by rights, should have killed him.

The rock icon has revealed the extent of his drug use, in which he consumed a daily cocktail of cocaine, ecstasy and vodka for four years.

"I was doing about 10 grams of cocaine a day, maybe taking six or eight ecstasy, and drinking three bottles of vodka — all in a day, every day," said Barnes of his 1998 to 2002 bender.

"I would get up and chop a line, about half a gram of coke, and snort it before I got out of bed.

"I really don't know how I lived through it."

Barnes makes the revelations in a biography, Icons of Australian Music: Jimmy Barnes. He reveals that the shocking, sustained drug use wreaked havoc on his body. "I had massive headaches and it ate a hole in my septum."

He used a combination of illegal drugs and over-the-counter medication to deal with the physical effects of his addiction.

"I'd wake up sometimes and my face felt like it was going to explode and I'd take something like half a dozen Aspro Clear or Panadol to take away the pain.

"Once it cleared, y'know, I was back into it again."

Barnes said his life revolved around drugs and porridge.

"I think I lived on porridge. I'd eat porridge and that was enough for me for the day and I'd just start winding up and go into the studio to record. It was very serious, I don't know how I survived it."

Ironically, Barnes was working with a personal trainer at the time and media reports heralded his new-found fitness, which was capped off by a peroxide blond hairdo. Behind the scenes, Barnes was nearly dead from drug use.

At the height of the crisis, Barnes and his long-time wife, Jane, were struggling to keep their marriage together. The couple have four children, Mahalia, Eliza-Jane, Jackie and Elly May, who were aged nine to 16 at the height of the problems.

"Jane and I decided if we were gonna be in it for the long haul then we can't have secrets," he said in the book. "We told each other things you don't necessarily want to hear."

The singer, who is now sober and recognised as a global UNICEF parent, needed extensive rehabilitation to recover from his addiction. He underwent open heart surgery last year.

The Age
 
"I was doing about 10 grams of cocaine a day, maybe taking six or eight ecstasy, and drinking three bottles of vodka — all in a day, every day," said Barnes of his 1998 to 2002 bender.

"I would get up and chop a line, about half a gram of coke, and snort it before I got out of bed."

Holy. Shit.

Makes me feel a lot better about smoking the odd doobie and popping a couple of pills every few months...
 
WOAH man!!! i get worried about going off tap n having a binge for 4 days..even monthly use (of stims or e) over the period of 6-12 months scares me a little these days, Now i read ol' jimmy has gone 4 years.. holy shit the ammounts stated are astronomical!!! i'd b a pile of grey matter even attempting such a fiascio8o
 
Yeah i thought he had aged alot when i saw a snippet of his new music video

8o now i know why.
 
hmmm, sorry to say dont buy it, all bit much for me to take as word, plus met the guy seemed like full of shit, and also friend of a friends dogs carer sold some gear to him that night and well he didnt handle it well so he may have been getting crap gear thats why could do so much but with the amount he consumed when i saw him, there was no way he was holding that amount of gear every day!!!
 
I don't buy it. Not saying he wasn't an addict but I believe he is bullshitting with the quantities.
 
college_dropout said:
I don't buy it. Not saying he wasn't an addict but I believe he is bullshitting with the quantities.

^ this.

6-8 ecstasy pills PER DAY for FOUR YEARS? Would they even have an affect on him? His serotonin would be well fucked.
 
He didn't say it was having an effect... just that he was taking it.
 
Either he's exaggerating, his drugs were extremely cut/bunk, or he's a totally reckless addict. I'm hoping its not the latter since the article mentions he had 4 children during that time. The amounts stated seem a little unbelievable, but I guess he probably had the funds to make it happen.

What I want to know is why they mentioned cheap wine in the title, but then made no mention of it in the article.
 
"Barnes said his life revolved around drugs and porridge."

Gold! ^I think they should get Cold Chisel back together just to write a song about this
 
peaked said:
What I want to know is why they mentioned cheap wine in the title, but then made no mention of it in the article.

I think it was meant to be a clever take on the song lyrics.
 
Doooofus said:
He didn't say it was having an effect... just that he was taking it.

Why would he take it if it didn't have an effect? MDMA isn't physically addictive.
 
^

I don't think he knows much about MDMA actually works. And I also believe he is a fucking liar. 6-8 ecstasy pills per day? 8)
 
He's probably just uneducated when it comes to drugs. His dealer probably said it was ecstasy and sold him speed bombs, or some kind of round, over the counter pill...
 
His dealer probably said it was ecstasy and sold him speed bombs, or some kind of round, over the counter pill...
quoted for truth.

I was thinking the same thing--MDMA would stop effecting you after 1-2 weeks of constant use. I've never pushed it that far myself, but I know of others who have. God...can you imagine the comedown? You'd be living on valium and beer for a month, lol.
 
Well, about 20 years ago I knew a local business man who did around 5 (strong) MDMA pills daily, but then again he was a wealthy old gangster dying of cancer. afaik, he kept this up for several months. He claimed they had minimal effect, but helped him to stay mobile by keeping his mind off dying, and gave him a better [?] form of pain relief than morphine.

Of course, there was also the well documented story of the man who ate a total of ~40,000 ecstasy tablets over nine years- taking 25/day for around 4 years.

I would argue that 10 grams of coke is not so much for some people- if you are able to withstand the costs i.e. have the head, heart & wallet that can tolerate it. In the past, I've known people who've done several grams on average per day, and kept that up for years (until either their health failed, or the money or source ran out). However, for most heavy users I knew, the amount was often shared and not all consumed by the individual - for many people, it would seem, coke isn't much fun on your own.

Perhaps Jimmy was exaggerating , or perhaps he was incorrectly quoted. Who knows, perhaps he did manage to squeeze all that into an average day. But what message does such a story really send? That these drugs fucked up his life really badly, or that, with a bit of rock and roll thrown in, you can survive anything ;)
 
hmmm i dont love it still, there was a time when i was consuming coke with no restrictions, and i my biggest week was half an oz (14g) and i was giving lines to people also.. im sure there are people who do more but for four years, the damage to his nose would be substantial,and well it would be plainly obvious as we all see with pete doherty etc, doing that huge an amount and being in public spotlight means it becomes exposed!
 
a few years back a mate told me he ran into a of an ozie legend at a club opening on the goldcoast back in 01 and he was hanging out with him and his wife. he could not beleive how hard this legend was going off(he was dancing around like mc hammer on crack)! in a dance club!then he told me who it was and i was like wtf!
i wonder if his personal trainer was a dj?
 
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