Greg Fleet is a highly respected Australian comedian with a long list of acting credits. He was also, for most of his adult life, a drug addict.
Back in 1997, he was one of the first international acts to perform at Auckland comedy bar The Classic.
This week, he returns to the venue to speak about his struggles with addiction at a Mental Health Awareness Week event.
Greg Fleet Photo: Supplied
Alongside performing, Fleet is an acclaimed author who's just published his debut novel The Good Son.
Of his 2015 autobiography These Things Happen, The Australian newspaper said:
"All through Greg Fleet's memoir, the title is repeated like a mantra. Narrowly avoid being stabbed and mugged in a dank Edinburgh alley while trying to score heroin, after being recognised as an actor from Neighbours? These things happen. Willingly engage in an enthusiastic, one-off homosexual encounter with a friend while both under the influence of ecstasy? These things happen. Yell so loud and for so long at hitting a baby in a snowboarding video game that a concerned neighbour knocks on the door in an attempt to help the poor child? These things happen."
Fleet is now “a few years sober,” he says.
“The times I’ve slipped up in the past are when I’ve got a bit cocky, I don’t really think about it anymore and then the next thing I know it’s in my hand and I’m doing it.”
For over 20 years he was a heroin addict: “Mostly heroin. That’s not a sentence you often use, is it?
"I got into it through being in a relationship with someone and falling into it.”
As to the why the drug ensnared him, Fleet is unsure.
“It may have been stuff through childhood. I had a strange childhood, but I mean a lot of people have and not everyone becomes a drug addict.”
Through the years, Fleet sampled the whole gamut of rehab options.
“I don’t think there are any fun rehabs - it’s not fun. Strangely, the best ones, and I’ve been to a couple over the years, the best ones I’ve been to are the kind of hardcore government ones.
“There are ones you go to that you pay a lot of money and I’ve been to those ones and also been to the government ones, which are free. But the government ones are better because I tend to be a bit Little Lord Fauntleroy so if I’m paying for something and they say 'wash that window' I’ll say 'I’m paying you, you wash the window!'”
You'll find no such latitude in government rehabilitation centres, Fleet says.
“With the government ones, they’re just like 'do it or get out'.
“Some people get to rehab and just want to get out of there as quick as they can and go back to doing what they’re doing. Most people, if you’ve been there for a little while, you realise you need to be there and you don’t want to leave.”
Fleet is looking forward to returning to The Classic: “It’s a great venue, it gets a very comedy-literate audience.”
New Zealand is more “culturally advanced” than Australia, he says, and he'd like to visit more often.
“I’ve thought that since the first time I came here. There’s more interest in taking risks or doing creative things that aren’t really obvious, you know?
“It’s always had a great music scene. Australia tends to claim anything successful that comes out of New Zealand, we like to pretend it’s ours. Movies, films, music, comedy - there’s always been a great level of creativity coming out of New Zealand.”
Jeremy Elwood will interview Greg Fleet at The Classic on Thursday 11 October as part of the Atawhai Festival.
