Brendon Burns has launched a crowdfunding appeal to put himself through rehab.
The comedian – who documented a previous stint in The Priory to deal with his drink, drugs and sex addiction in his stand-up almost a decade ago – admitted he had started drinking again and said: ‘I'm still an alcoholic and can't stop on my own.’
He added: ‘Finding blood in my urine, mouth and other places was probably a fairly decent sign that this old body might not cope with such things should I continue.’
Appealing for the equivalent of around £6,500 on GoFundMe, Burns added: ‘I just hit my four days of withdrawal and sweats. Things aren't going to be pretty from here if I'm anywhere near booze or drugs being available. I know me, I know my addictions. I know I can't do this on my own.’
The fund has reached more than a quarter of its target within two days.
Burns – who won the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2007 – added in a follow-up post: ‘I'm blown away. Thank you all so much for the love and support. I'm happy, sad, embarrassed, humbled, worthy, unworthy, overwhelmed..
‘But most of all relieved. Relieved I don't have to do it alone.’
He added that he was touched ‘just how many reached out to say my work has helped them and even saved their own lives in the past. Just how many of you have intimated that you don’t view this as charity. Has been moving me and mum to tears. Repeatedly…. Ah fuck.. Here I go again. … Not crying just cos of that. It’s the culmination of such a very long and lonely road.’
‘I'm not just getting recovery help. I'm getting help on all fronts. To not just rebuild physically, mentally and personally. But professionally as well.
The 52-year-old added that his mother Victoria would be looking after the donations – ‘to ensure I don't go on a bender in a moment of insanity’ and was intending to use the donations to go to a cheap rehab in Thailand.
The Australian comic has been off the radar for a number of years, and wrote that ‘I've been absent, travelling the world, living in airports and motels, sometimes on the streets’.
He made the news in his native Perth in 2019 when he was stung by by a stonefish, the most venomous of all fishes.
Writing on his GoFundMe appeal, he observed: ‘I might be able to take a stonefish to the chin but even angry oceans can't stop what I'm capable of doing to myself (and "taking it!") *Joke.’
‘Take it’ was what he would yell at audiences after delivering a particularly brutal or offensive line.
During his time away from comedy, Burns has become absorbed with artificial intelligence, big data and mathematical problems, which he believes would benefit from comedians’ more creative way of thinking.
