Sometimes, the most bold and simple action by someone we’ve never met can act as the catalyst we need to change our way of life.
“Oh no, really!” my sister sighed, when news of the ball tampering in cricket broke recently. “These are supposed to be our role models! People our kids can look up to, to learn about sportsmanship and ethics! What do you think this teaches them?” She was mad. I said nothing. Mostly because cricket is not a thing in my world. Everybody knows I’m a rugby-loving Stormers fan.
In the last couple of weeks, though, everyone’s been talking about role models and it did get me thinking, and well, look – let’s just jump right into it. It’s Kate Moss. Kate Moss is my role model. And the same model behaviour displayed by Kate helped me land a job.
Before you roll your eyes loudly and scroll on by, hear me out. It’s not the fashion industry nor a career built on body aesthetics and ramp work that has me all agog and got me hired, despite the fact that I believe the scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep schools Anne Hathaway on the singular divinity of cerulean is possibly the most iconic and rewatchable piece of acting ever.
In a world where each morning greets us with news of yet another fallen icon, another scandalised politician, actor or sports hero, Kate Moss stands out like a shining beacon of personal accountability.
At a time when Lance Armstrong was denying that he doped his way onto the winners’ podium and Tiger Woods was denying breaking his wedding vows, Kate Moss showed the world what it meant to take accountability and do the right thing.
Kate had been filmed snorting cocaine in a music studio with friends, and when the story broke, there was no hiding, no denying and no blaming of the other people involved. Kate simply said thank you very much for the wake-up call – I’m checking in to rehab. And off she went.
This resonates deeply with me because I am a recovering cocaine addict. Before I hit rock bottom I spent months – years even – denying the problem. Playing the part of Lance and Tiger. Pretending the issue didn’t exist, and when it became obvious that I couldn’t deny it anymore, it became a blame-game: it was everyone else’s fault – my friends and exes, work pressure, my mother – whoever I could blame so that the responsibility was not mine. It was not my fault.
Until everything came crashing down. I started blogging my addiction, rock bottom and recovery. I wrote some stark and honest posts about the hell I’d barely escaped, and two weeks after my first post, I got a call and the voice on the other side said “Hi, I’m Alan’s PA. He read your blog and he wants you to come work for him.” I was a little dumbfounded. Confessing the kind of stuff I had been was not how I ever envisaged I’d get hired. But there we were.
In my subsequent telephonic interview with Alan, he said to me straight out “Dave, the key thing here is honesty. Come work for me, run my internal communications, and tell everybody about your drug addiction – because it’s everywhere, and people need to know the truth and see that you can escape it. So, come tell your story.” Two weeks later I started my new job in Stellenbosch.
It wasn’t always easy, and on day 43 I fell off the wagon. Once again I was tracking lines across a toilet seat in a dingy nightclub.
I remember the next morning so clearly. 6am on a cold platform at Stellenbosch station, waiting for the train to take me home to Paarl. All I could think about was how would I cover up this fall from grace? What lies would I have to tell? And then – despite it being 7 years after Kate’s drama – all I could think about was how she simply owned up to it. She stood up, confessed, and took action.
So that was what I did. I went home, and I told my family, my friends, and my new bosses what had happened. And then I posted it on my blog and started recording my sobriety from day 1 all over again, doing it publicly.
Each day I would write a short piece about how I felt, how I craved, how I raged or how relieved I was to have made it through another day sober. Through everything, I reminded myself that Kate Moss did this, and her world did not end. Kate Moss survived this, and if she could do it, so could I.
The most remarkable thing happened – the shame that I’d felt falling off the wagon was gone. Because there is no shame in taking action to fix your mistakes.
That is what Kate Moss taught me. Not the sports stars we traditionally hold up to be gods of fair play, ethics and sportsmanship. Like me at the beginning of my journey, they shifted, twisted, hid, lied and when they had nowhere left to turn, finally confessed and faced the music. But I have no doubt that had the pressure and attention not been what it was, they’d never have come clean, never have taken accountability.
Kate Moss did. From the get-go. Kate showed us the power of accountability and taking responsibility for our lives and choices.
And changing my way of responding to life, by choosing to stand up and take ownership when things go wrong has stood me in good stead ever since April 16, 2012, when I walked out of Paarl station, and spoke my truth. I’ve been clean for 6 years, 1 month, 15 days….and counting. Thanks Kate!
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