Friday 17 November 2017

Reggie Yates: Hidden Australia

A new series from Reggie and the team is something I always look forward to and they certainly lived up to my expectations. It seemed a challenging series for Reggie, coming face to face with addicts of all kinds. The series asks him to delve deep into people's stories and understand why they turn to substances and other means of escape from everyday life. Reggie is honest, he asks the questions, he listens to the answers and he challenges where he thinks he should. It's been great to see another two-part series hit the screen because I just can't get enough.

Episode 1 - Black in the Outback
Reggie is sad to find that the first people he meets in Wilcannia - a town with an 800 strong population where 80% are indigenous - are alcoholics. The programme follows him as he tries to unearth the origins of this stereotype and ask if there is more to this town than meets the eye. What he discovers is that this problem is not a recent one and stems from a vivid segregation from 'white' society. It is a town where business has gone away, employment has followed it and alcohol is about the only form of entertainment. Young people feel as though there isn't much hope for a future and many want to leave the town as soon as is possible. But it's not just the negatives that get the spotlight. We do meet some great characters, the owner of the only supermarket in town, the local radio station, a young teenager who made music as a young child that traveled the globe
A middle aged man dedicated to keeping the indigenous culture alive

Social deprivation is one thing, but so is the spirit of the younger people who live there. There is hope but there is also no denying the damage that yeas and years of institutional racism that has plagued Wilcannia.

Episode 2 - Addicted to Ice
Like Reggie, I find it hard it to completely understand drug addiction. I do understand however, the desire to remove ourselves consciously. I have suffered from depression and I suppose in a way, from addiction too. It took the form of self-harm and perhaps it took me a while to see it as a coping mechanism, a way of escape. Three years on, depression is no longer a problem for me but a new battle takes it's place, this time, it's anxiety. There are days I wish I could turn my brain off, make the anxiety go away. Days I shake or feel overwhelmed at the simplest things. That need for escape is strong and it's easy for me to understand how some are drawn to drugs as a way out of our heads.

The range of people we meet really bring the issue home. Brett, once a successful tri-athlete representing his country, but for whom nothing was ever good enough. He turned to Ice and everything changed. We meet mother-of-two Sharni who wants to get clean for her two twin boys and who has had by her side a real rock of an aunt along the way. We meet residents of Gatwick House who freely use on camera and seem far from wanting to get out of their dangerous relationships with Ice.

It's an episode that really hit home. It reminded me to stay vigilant about the desire to escape my anxiety and to do so in a healthy and positive way. More than that though, it left me wishing that my own relative's story could have ended like Sharni's in the programme. I only wish that he could have run out of rehab into the arms of his family having come so far in just 9 days. The outcome of his story was sadly different and I struggled to make it to the end without a few tears.

A great piece of television with some honest Reggie-style film-making. The kind of programme I aspire to make and one to watch to anyone who wants to understand addiction.

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