Two Years Clean — What I've Learned About Addiction, Recovery and the Mask I Wore for 40 Years

By Mark Aiston — Former Channel 10 & ABC Presenter, Recovery Advocate

This piece is adapted from an interview recorded approximately two years after Mark completed his stay at the Hader Clinic in Geelong.

I've been asked a lot of questions about my story over the years. But the one that still stops me — the one I have to think carefully about before I answer — is this one:

How did you do a 40-year career in television and radio while all of that was going on underneath?

The honest answer is: I wore a mask. And I got very, very good at it.

The mask

For most of my career, I was the face people recognised at the shops. The voice in their ears on the way to work. The bloke reporting from the footy or the cricket, smiling into the camera, looking like he had everything together.

What nobody could see — what I made sure nobody could see — was what was happening underneath.

I started gambling at 14. Started drinking at 14. Started smoking marijuana at 14. And while I'm not saying I did all of those things every single day from then until I went into rehab — I'm not going to pretend they weren't a thread running through everything.

For a long time I managed it. I functioned. I turned up, did the job, kept the mask in place. But over time, the mask got heavier. Initially I could bolt it on with a couple of bolts and it would sit nicely. After a while I needed more bolts. Then more. Until keeping it in place was taking everything I had.

The unravelling

When things finally fell apart, they fell apart quickly.

I lost my job at Channel 10. Twelve months later, I lost my position at 5AA. And then my marriage ended — and I still carry deep sadness about that. My former wife went through something horrendous because of my choices, and I'm terribly sorry for that.

I started living alone. And that's when things got very dark.

I started using cocaine because it made me feel better — temporarily. I drank more. I was making bad choices, spending money I didn't have, not working, being verbally aggressive to people I loved. I knew it was happening. I want to be clear about this — I was never in denial. If you had sat me down and said "Mark, this is not going well," I wouldn't have said everything's fine. I would have said "I know. I know it's going badly."

But knowing and stopping are completely different things.

There were moments — when I was straight, which wasn't often — when I thought: Is this really worth it? That's all I'll say about that. You can read between the lines.

That went on for two years. Two years in the darkest, wettest, most airless hole I've ever been in.

The dinner at Glenelg

My sister Kathy and my best mate Brad asked me to come for dinner at a seafood restaurant down at Glenelg.

I knew why they were there. I've never been in denial.

And what happened at that table — what they said and how they said it — is the reason I'm here today writing this. They didn't lecture me. They didn't give me an ultimatum. They just said they were worried. They were scared. They loved me. And they asked: What can we do?

I said I wasn't sure. I just knew I needed to stop. I needed a reason to get up in the morning. I needed to change so many things — it felt overwhelming. But I said: maybe rehab.

We went home. That night I got on the computer and sent emails to four or five rehab facilities around Australia. The next morning I was at the park with my dog when my phone rang. It was a man from the Hader Clinic in Geelong. We spoke for almost an hour. I cried for most of it.

He wasn't gentle. He said: Continue this and you'll be dead in two years. Continue this and you'll lose your family. Continue this and you'll be in jail because you'll hit someone while you're driving.

No mucking around. No softening. Just the truth.

The next day I flew to Melbourne. Within half an hour of landing I was in his car, on the way to the Hader Clinic.

That night, I put my head down on a pillow in a room at the clinic — no phone, no laptop, lights out at ten — and I thought two things.

The first was: What on earth has happened to my life? Four years earlier I was in a TV studio saying goodnight to Adelaide. Now I was in a room with twenty people — businessmen, homeless people, gambling addicts, ice addicts, alcoholics, people just out of prison.

The second thought was: This is good. This is what I needed. This is the restart.

What two years of recovery has taught me

I want to be absolutely clear about something, because I think it's important.

Going to rehab didn't fix everything. I'm not sitting here telling you I've got this by the scruff of the neck. I'm still working on things. I still make mistakes. There are people I haven't yet apologised to who I want to apologise to. There are days when it all feels like too much.

But here's what I know:

Recovery isn't a destination. It's a journey. One that doesn't end until we leave this world. Anyone who tells you they've arrived has stopped paying attention.

Structure matters more than you think. Having a reason to get up in the morning — my dog Toby, a commitment, a purpose — matters enormously.

Gratitude is not a cliché. I have a bed. A pillow. Clean sheets. A car. A dog who loves me. There were moments during those two dark years when I didn't have any of that. I don't take any of it for granted now.

I see that period as a gift. I know that sounds strange. But if it had happened later — at 68 instead of 63 — I'd have less time to get well, to make amends, to do the work. It happened when it happened. And I'm grateful for that, even though it was the worst period of my life.

What I'd say to someone who is struggling right now

If you have people who love you enough to sit across a table and say they're scared — please, please take that. See it as the gift it is.

If you don't have that yet, I have one simple ask: when you're clear, give yourself some time to think honestly about where you are, where you're heading, and what happens if nothing changes. And then speak to someone. Anyone. A doctor, a psychologist, a friend, a family member. Just one person. That's all it takes to start something.

If you're someone who loves a person who is struggling — I know how hard it is to know what to say. What Kathy and Brad did that night in Glenelg wasn't magic. It was love, delivered calmly, without agenda. They didn't tell me what to do. They told me they were scared because they loved me. And they asked what they could do to help.

That's it. That's what worked.

One last thing

I'm still alive. I know that sounds like a low bar. But when I think about where I was two years before that interview — in that dark, airless hole — I don't take it for granted for a single day.

I'm still here. Still working on things. Still making mistakes. Still getting up every morning and trying again.

That's all any of us can do.

If someone you love is struggling with addiction and you don't know what to say, The Conversation was built for exactly this — a course and AI toolkit for families, built from lived experience on both sides of the conversation.

Mark Aiston is a former Channel 10 and ABC presenter based in Adelaide, South Australia. He is not a psychologist, counsellor or doctor. He is someone who was on the other side of this conversation — and who finally was reached.