David Campbell's life shattered when he was just 10 – decades later, three heartbreaking words did it again

David Campbell was 10 years old when his entire world was turned upside down.

After being brought up by his grandmother, who he believed was his mum, he learned that his actual mother was the young woman he'd been told was his sister.

And his dad, Jimmy Barnes, was the biggest rockstar in the country.

The Today Extra host and current Australian Father of the Year told his very unique story – which you can watch in the video above – on Parental Guidance's final episode, all about mental health, and shared how this relevation impacted him both then and in the decades that followed.

"I shut down. I did not cope with it, I did not know to process it. That was the beginning, I can tell, of trauma that lasted for a long, long time for me," he recalled.

Stream every episode of Parental Guidance for free on 9Now.

David said he was an "extremely anxious child" with undiagnosed ADHD, and all of this information made it worse.

"Trauma about change, inherent neediness... you're trying to navigate all of this family drama and you've got a mullet and acne, it's really difficult. And then I was scared to tell people because I didn't want them to judge me differently," he explained.

These days, David and his father are very close – and both are now sober.

David remembered having a famous picture of his dad with a vodka bottle in his hand hanging on his wall which, especially as he also pursued music, affected his perception of alcohol and masculinity.

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"By the time I realised I was starting to have more and more of a problem with booze, it had already latched on," David recalled.

His lightbulb moment came when his eldest son Leo was three, and David was so sick after a night of drinking that they almost missed a flight to begin a family holiday.

"I heard my son say 'Dad's not well' and I looked at [his wife] Lisa and said 'I'm done'. I can't have him seeing me like this.

"He's three. I won't let that be a memory for him like all the memories that I could close my eyes and see in my head of my family, both sides, going through the same motions, the same cycles time and time again."

That was the last time he had a drink, David is now 11 years sober.

David is now a father of three, sharing Leo, 15, and twins Betty and Billy, 10, with his wife and producer Lisa Campbell.

In the spirit of breaking cycles, David shared with the Parental Guidance parents how he parents with mental health in mind.

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For him and his family, it's all about talking through your feelings.

"Sometimes that means they've got cry," he said.

"Boys have got to cry otherwise they just keep it all pent up. Man, I wish I had that ability when I was his age."

Here David's tale of sobriety in the video below:

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Keeping a safe boundary was also important to him.

"I knew too much at a young age about too many traumas. You still need to have a good boundary there."

David's story was certainly inspiring for the parents, showing that it was never too late to break cycles.

Stream every episode of Parental Guidance for free on 9Now.

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