A month later, after countless tests, Haines was diagnosed with stage four throat cancer.
โThat was it. My life pretty much changed overnight. I was in hospital for three months, I had several operations, I lost the ability to swallow, to eat. I had to eat through a tube in my nose. It was pretty harrowing.
โLooking back on it, you think, whatโs the worst thing that could happen in my life? The worst thing for me would be to lose the ability to play and to lose all my income. And that sort of happened.โ
After months of radiotherapy and surgery, Haines was declared cancer-free.
But the cancer diagnosis had come two years into Hainesโ sobriety journey, which he said came as a relief at the time: โโI went, โOh, great, I donโt have to go to those boring AA meetings anymoreโ and I started drinking againโ.
However, it quickly became a toxic addiction again, and after a year back on the booze, he decided to give it up for good.
โI got back into the programme, and I am six years [sober] this month.
โI think the whole process of getting cancer and then thinking โI can drink responsiblyโ and then deciding that I couldnโt and getting back into AA, doing the steps with my sponsors, it was incredible.
โIt allowed me to look at my life, to look at the mistakes Iโd made, and to try and make amends with those people and really look at my life and go, โOkay, how am I going to turn those things into positives? How am I going to move forward in my life?โโ
Haines said he now felt more creative in the wake of his experiences over the past decade.
โHopefully Iโve left ego behind. Iโve left behind worrying about what other people think about me. Iโve been able to leave a lot of those things behind and really get to the nub and the gist of why Iโm here and what Iโm good at and then just get down to the work.
โThe work is really important to me and the journey is much more important to me than the outcome.
โNow Iโve got so much more music out there than Iโve ever had in my life.โ
Real Life is a weekly interview show where John Cowan speaks with prominent guests about their life, upbringing, and the way they see the world. Tune in Sundays from 7:30pm on Newstalk ZB or listen to the latest full interview here.
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