Gold Coast Consumers Share Dual Diagnosis Experiences

Heads Up Consortia Gold Coast
Valuing Voices
Gold Coast Consumer perspectives of Dual Diagnosis and Addiction
Zoe Gill
April 2016

Gold Coast Consumer perspectives of Dual Diagnosis and Addiction Page | 1
Contents
Acknoweldgement..................................................................................................................................3
Background Information.........................................................................................................................4
Valuing Voices: Gold Coast Consumer Perspectives of Dual Diagnosis and Addiction ..........................4
Project Logic............................................................................................................................................5
A. Recruitment of consumers..........................................................................................................6
B. Working with people as a primary resource...............................................................................6
C. Identifying secondary resources.................................................................................................7
D. Generating ideas for community initiatives................................................................................7
E. Turning Ideas into reality............................................................................................................7
Thematic Analysis ...................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations................................................................................................................................12
Next steps .............................................................................................................................................12
References ............................................................................................................................................12
1. Scott’s Story ..................................................................................................................................15
2. Emily’s Story..................................................................................................................................20
3. Dante’s Story.................................................................................................................................30
4. Michael’s Story..............................................................................................................................37

5. Ayshe’s Story.................................................................................................................................45
6. Tony’s Story...................................................................................................................................56
7. Ivan’s Story....................................................................................................................................58
8. Matt’s Story...................................................................................................................................61
9. Robbie's Story ...............................................................................................................................68
10. Dane's Story ..............................................................................................................................72

Acknoweldgement
I would like to thank the Gold Coast Heads Up Consortia for having the vision to ask Consumers of
dual diagnosis and addiction services what they want, need and dream for. Ozcare Partners in
Recovery Gold Coast for sponsoring such a worthwhile endeavour and Margaret Cox who is forever
committed to social justice. Thank you to Sandra Bale for gifting this project her talents of active
listening and graphic recording. I would like to thank Surfers Paradise Anglican Crisis Care (SPACC),
Headspace Southport and especially Toni and the team at Goldbridge Rehabilitation Services for
their belief in learning and co-creating with students. I would also like to thank Joanne Williams
from Griffith University for continuing to believe in this project and walking alongside me and
Phoebe Tucker from Primary Health Network Gold Coast for spending time reviewing this document.
Most of all, I would like to personally thank each of the ten participants who took part in this project.
Your vulnerability, trust and courage is something I will forever take with me. Always know your
voice has value.
Heads Up Consortia (Heads Up)
Contact Details: Zoe Gill, Project Lead
Email: zoe.gill@griffithuni.edu.au
Phone: (07) 5569 6227 Ozcare Partners in Recovery
Office: 214 - 218 Highfield Drive, Robina Q 4226

Background Information
Heads Up Consortia (Heads Up) is a group of Gold Coast government and non-government services
who have been meeting since 2008. The vision of Heads Up is to work collaboratively across
organisations, agencies and sectors to lead and promote a recovery focused system of care for those
with mental health and drug and/or alcohol/substance misuse issues.
In early 2015, a Heads Up networking breakfast was held and one of the key areas identified by
Heads Up stakeholders was to refocus on the needs of consumers, their families and carers involved
with alcohol and drug services across the Gold Coast.
Furthermore over the last three years of Partners in Recovery, it has been identified formally via an
issues register compiled by Facilitators, there is a general lack of detox beds, opportunities for
rehabilitation and a feeling of disconnect between these services. There are also known service gaps
for consumers with dual diagnosis (AODs/Mental Health). In order to further understand this need,
it was decided by Heads Up in September 2015 that a mapping exercise and subsequent needs
assessment would need to be completed in order to understand specific gaps within the service
system.
Valuing Voices: Gold Coast Consumer Perspectives of Dual Diagnosis and Addiction
In January 2015, Zoe Gill, a Masters of Social Work student with Griffith University and current
member of Heads Up Consortia was tasked with completing a community partnering project as part
of a student placement with Ozcare Partners in Recovery. This project had a two pronged approach;
1. Partner and collaborate with local services;
2. Work with consumers who access these services as it is widely understood that people who
access services are experts within their own care and thus have vital feedback about how
‘the system’ works to meet their needs.
This project focused on capturing systemic gaps and barriers within the service system through
recording and analysing consumer narratives.

Project Logic
The following project logic provides a basis to understand why the project was needed and the
desired outcomes.
Context and Assumptions  Recovery oriented practices have become internationally
recognised as best practice in both mental health and
drug and/or alcohol/substance misuse service delivery.
 Consumer engagement and participation has also gained
status, with the rise of paid peer work (in a variety of
forms) and the need to engage more meaningfully with
consumers individually and as a sector.
 There is a fundamental assumption that consumers
know what is best for themselves and what they need
from service systems.
 Using invitation, rather than a mandated process for
engagement ensures a consumer’s right to choose
opportunities that they feel are trustworthy and
meaningful to them.
By applying Rose (1990) three principles of advocacy and
empowerment theory;
 By allowing space to share stories, this can lead to the
empowerment of an individual;
 Contextualisation through story timelines focuses
consumers on their own understanding of their ‘social
being’. This allows dialogue to develop based on a
client’s reality.
 Collectivity reduces feelings of isolation and improves
connection. Experiencing this, a consumer can produce
stronger feelings of self-worth.
The Problem and Intervention  PROBLEM: There is currently disconnect with consumers
who access services and the services themselves on the
Gold Coast.
 PROBLEM: Not all consumers have a say in their
individual services and supports or the broader system,
particularly those people with more complex needs and
vulnerabilities.
 PROBLEM: Not all community managed services in the
AODs or Mental Health space have cultures that
facilitate consumer participation and engagement.
 SOLUTION: Allowing a space whereby consumers are
invited, not mandated to participate in sharing their
experiences, allows a platform for both (individual) case
and (systemic) cause advocacy to occur (Payne, 2014).
Intervention Outcomes  Consumers can use this story to assist them to connect
and share this story with their support systems;

 Consumers who share stories are providing impactful
feedback to service systems.
 Service systems are informed of differing consumer
perspectives across the Gold Coast.
 Priorities of need for consumers are developed through
the thematic analysis process.
An ABCD Community Development model was used to guide this project as follows;
A. Recruitment of consumers
Heads Up Consortia monthly meetings were used as a way to recruit services that were interested in
involving consumers within the Valuing Voices project. Follow up emails as well as an Expression of
Interest was sent via Heads Up Consortia local interagency email lists.
Services that identified their interest were;
 Gold Coast Primary Health Network;
 Gold Coast Health Consumer, Carer and Family Participation Team;
 Headspace Southport;
 Goldbridge Rehabilitation Services;
 Ozcare Partners in Recovery Gold Coast.
 Surfers Paradise Anglican Crisis Care (SPACC)
B. Working with people as a primary resource
Once consumer/s were identified by the service, these consumers were then invited to participate
within the Valuing Voices project either via email, after a presentation to the service or via individual
face to face meetings.
Graphic Recording is a way of using visual tools and mapping to capture a consumer perspective of
the current service system. Sandra Bale, Facilitator, Ozcare Partners in recovery has assisted with
five of the ten consumer sessions to assist the capture of the consumer narrative.
Sessions were held with individuals and ranged between 35mins to 2 hours in length. Participants,
where possible were given a copy of their graphic recording as well as a recorded version of their
story, or a narrative where possible. After the session was held, with permission, the person’s case
manager followed up with the person and in some instances were also provided a copy of the
story/narrative. This was to ensure that the person continued to felt safe and supported after
disclosure as well as being provided appropriate follow up with the relevant service.
Participants signed consent forms for their story to be graphically recorded as well as their voices to
be recorded, so this could be used to write the narratives.

C. Identifying secondary resources
Heads Up Consortia interagency meetings were used to broadly discuss and review how the project
was going each month over three months via a verbal report from the Project Lead. Both the
graphically recorded narratives and the thematic analysis has been of particular interest to the
interagency group.
D. Generating ideas for community initiatives
Heads Up Consortia have identified that there are three key organisations who are integral to the
conversation within the Gold Coast community.
Heads Up Consortia  To guide the Heads Up Consortia for the next year
based on the themes within the consumer narratives;
 To link with any additional organisations that may be
able to assist and support consumers with addiction
or mental health issues on the Gold Coast;
 To enhance the partnerships of this network with the
wider Gold Coast service system.
AODS Gold Coast  To assist and contribute to the work that AODS is
already completing in terms of state-wide service
system mapping on the Gold Coast.
Primary Health Network  To assist in better understanding the needs of
individuals who have experienced, or experiencing
mental health and alcohol and other drug problems
and access to treatment services
 To contribute to the needs assessment work that
GCPHN is completing to inform priorities for the
region
E. Turning Ideas into reality
The Valuing Voices Project Launch will be held on Thursday 26 May 2016, at Ozcare Robina. Key
stakeholders and participants of the Valuing Voices Project have been invited to explore and discuss
this project and where to from here.

Thematic Analysis
Each person was invited to share their story with the story harvester. In five of the ten instances,
these stories were also graphically recorded. Individual and systemic themes were then collated to
be utilised by stakeholders.
Participant One Individual  Interfamilial sexual abuse
 Family violence
 Family conflict
 Childhood trauma
 Mental Illness
 Mental Health admission
 Family history of mental illness
 Homelessness
 Polysubstance use
 Disconnection from family
Systemic  Stigma of health system
 Medication mismanagement
 Influence of religious systems
 Lack of early intervention (mental health)
 Homelessness
Participant Two Individual  Interfamilial sexual abuse
 Childhood trauma/torture
 Family violence
 Family conflict
 Parental drug use
 Step families
 Binge Drinking
 Bullying
 School Disruption
 Teenage aggression
 Early experimentation with alcohol/drugs
 Sexuality
 Psychosis
 Crime/criminal activity
 Mental Illness
 Disconnection from family
 Vicarious trauma
Systemic  Influence of religious systems
 Lack of early intervention
 Difference in models (therapeutic communities vs.
medical model)
 Early disengagement from school
 At times limited options for aftercare, or
transitioning process to re-engage with the

community following time in a residential
rehabilitation facility.
 Individual needs forced to adapt to treatment or
system environment, rather than system
responding to individual.
Participant Three Individual  Identity
 Interfamilial sexual abuse
 Sexuality
 Family Violence
 Cultural difference
 Parental Adultery
 Parental drug use/addiction
 Step families
 Family mental illness
 Mental Illness
 Partner Violence
 Homelessness
 Suicide Attempts
Systemic  Lack of early intervention
 Lack of accessible support services
Participant Four Individual  Forgotten Australians
 Foster care
 Child protection
 Parental addiction
 Family violence
 Family Conflict
 Juvenile detention
 Homelessness
 Binge Drinking
 Workplace violence
 Gambling (Partner)
 Homelessness
Systemic  GP’s Mixed response to addiction
 Breathalyzer within group – lack of trust?
 Lengthy wait at times to access treatment services
due to the service being at capacity. There was a
need to access treatment quickly but this was
sometimes not possible and potential hindered
engagement.
 Discharge from hospital without connections to
services in the community.

Participant Five Individual  Parental Drug Use
 Interfamilial sexual abuse
 Sexual abuse
 Family conflict
 Step families
 Bullying
 Poverty
 Gambling (family)
 Generational family violence
 Partner violence
 Teenage Aggression
 Early experimentation with drugs/alcohol
 Polysubstance Use
 Teen pregnancy
 Family mental health issues
 Authority issues
Systemic  Early disengagement from school
 Police
 Limited early intervention and health promotion
reaching individuals in need.
Participant Six Individual  Homelessness
 Relationship breakdown
 Mental Illness
 Drug use
 Parental Mental Illness
 Childhood poverty
Systemic  Lack of accessible homelessness services
 Historical difficulties with Centrelink
 Lack of accessible domestic violence services for
men
Participant Seven Individual  Cultural difference
 Newly arrived family
 Homelessness
 Childhood Poverty
 Foster care
Systemic  Assistance for newly arrived families
 Homelessness
Participant Eight Individual  Crime/criminal activity

 Relationship breakdown
 Sexual Assault
 Disengagement from services
 Prostitution
 Mental Illness
 Mental Health admission
 Psychosis
Systemic  Use of substances in workplace
 Lack of follow up after admission/mental health
diagnosis
 Concern that mental health problems could
compromise place in rehabilitation facility due to
perceived limited knowledge about mental health.
Participant Nine Individual  Sexual abuse
 Family violence
 Family conflict
 School Disruption
 Adolescent experimentation with alcohol/drugs
 Crime/criminality
 Serious violence
Systemic  Value judgements from practitioner;
 Lack of support while in jail;
 Low level of education and/or awareness
regarding the impact of alcohol and drug use on
an individuals’ mental and physical health.
 Individual needs forced to adapt to treatment or
system environment, rather than system
responding to individual.
 Discharge from hospital without connections to
services in the community.
Participant Ten Individual  Authority issues
 Outlaw motorcycle gangs
 Family violence
 Parental Adultery
 Adolescent experimentation with drugs/alcohol
 Bullying
 Family financial stress
 Parental addiction
 Mental illness

 Mental health admission
 Suicide attempts
Systemic  Use of substances in workplace
 Lack of follow up after admission to hospital
 Lack of support/follow up in jail
 Police
Recommendations
Heads Up Consortia
i. That a separate working group be formulated out of Heads Up Consortia via invitation;
ii. That these themes arising from the project are further analysed and categorised into
priority areas;
iii. That Heads Up uses these priority areas to focus the work within the Heads Up
Consortia.
Next steps
 Meeting to occur with Primary Health Network in late April to discuss thematic findings.
 Meeting to occur with AODS to discuss report and findings.
 Valuing Voices: Consumer perspectives of Dual Diagnosis and Addiction to be officially
launched on Thursday 26 May, 2016 by Heads Up Consortia at Ozcare Robina.
References
Cameron, J. &Gibson, K. (2001) Shifting Focus: Alternative Pathways for Communities and
Economies: A Resources Kit. University of Newcastle and University of Western Sydney
Payne, M., 1947. (2014). Modern social work theory (Fourth ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rose, S. M. (1990). Advocacy/Empowerment: An approach to clinical practice for social work. Journal
of Sociology and Social Welfare, 17(2), 41-51.

Consumer Narratives
+
Graphic Recordings

1. Scott’s Story
I have a diagnosis, paranoid schizophrenia, and also addiction is what you would call it.
Eight years ago, I went to rehab in America, to get help. It was from injecting morphine, I don’t
know how long it was, I lost track of time back then. Six months to a year, something like that.
I had not touched a cigarette up until the age of 25. My Dad sexually molested me and assaulted me
all the time, and I fell apart. He is finally being punished for this and we are going through the court
processes now.
The schizophrenia is genetic in my family, my Grandmother had it, had the illness, and later in my life
I found out I had schizophrenia.
It started out, I left home at 19, and got married to an Australian girl. We had two kids and then four
years later left them, because my mental health was really starting to go. My religion taught us, that
psychologists were evil. And people would try to use you, if you told them about your mental
illness.
I turned to drugs to help with my mind. By age 25, I was injecting speed. A year later, smoking and
it progressed from there. All up, nine or ten years. I knew I had an addiction; no one had to tell me.
Getting off it, I knew I could get better access to my kids. Not a court’s decision, it was my decision; I
knew it wasn’t right having that addiction while wanting to see my kids. I knew this would be a
destructive relationship.
So for me accessing services started at around age 25 or 26. At this age I got off speed, but had
psychosis left over. The way I tried to deal with it at first was to get clean, I was clean for six
months, but my mind just wouldn’t slow down. I couldn’t sleep and it was getting worse and not
better. I did this on my own, without services, because I was scared if I went to services, they would
take away my freedom completely. I had friends that went into rehab, had psychosis or didn’t sleep
well, or had bad reactions to something they took. And then they were locked up for months. So
that really scared me back then. I then chose to go through mental health to help me sort out my
mind; they asked me a bunch of questions. They said, ‘Yeah, afraid to tell you but you are
schizophrenic’. I was like okay… what does that mean to me? What does that mean for my future?
At this point I cut off all my family, because all of them at this point were still talking to my Dad. In
the last five years they have cut him off, and have started dealing with it [the abuse].

I got on medication then. The common belief with drug users back then, was that mental health
medications were a trap or messed with your mind. That if you took them long term they would
alter your mind. They forgot to point out that so does speed and so does ecstasy in a far much
worse way. It took me a while of going back and forth between drugs for a couple of months and
then going back to my medication, then the medication would last for a year or two. I kept going
back and forth. When I went back on speed, after doing the meds for it was like 2 years or
something. One day I became homeless, it was the biggest thing that drove my addiction. I was
feeling depressed, and knowing I had my kids available to see me, and I could see them. I wasn’t
able to see them, because I wasn’t healthy, I was sick. I went up to the mountains, near Sydney,
couldn’t get speed, so I got some morphine, he was selling really cheap, or so I thought. And yeah,
that’s when time stopped. I disappeared into the drug realm, I had a house to stay at after living in a
tent for a month. I found a house and just took drugs every day, as much as I could. And then
ended up getting blood disease from that and was still so, so uneducated. I had no clue what
mental health was, I still had no idea what schizophrenia was. After the morphine addiction, I was
hopeless, and empty.
My youngest sister got back in contact with me, and she helped got me off and out of that drug
house and into a friend’s house. From there I decided to go to rehab because my Dad was prepared
to pay for me to go to America. If I went to America, he would pay. Although, the rehab was run
by the same cult I grew up in so it still had all the mind screwing teachings I grew up with.
Being part of this religion was a barrier but it also connected to an inner drive for me, made me feel
righteous, that I was doing the right thing. One side it was good, but on the other side, it was
reinforcing everything that was wrong about my Dad. He was a pastor, he was telling all these things
to me. I was trying to become friends with him again because I thought he had changed.
The rehab stint was six months. I lived with my parents for a few years again after this. Then my
parents broke up. After being together forever and I have six siblings, 40 years they had been
married. I helped my Mum escape my Dad because he was quite violent, when he didn’t get his
way. My Mum decided to go to Africa, and I was alone and feeling and hurting. Because of the
family problems, I fell again. I fell for about six months. That was the last time I fell. And that was
four or five years ago.
Now this court case is starting with my Dad, I see the danger of wanting to go back and lose myself
in that drug world again. But this time, I’m educated. This time I have support around me. FSG and
other services all around the community and also friends within those organisations. And I am now

connected to parts of my family like my younger sister. So know I’m talking to them when I am
feeling bad. When I feel like a want to disappear or I now have back up plans. Being schizophrenic,
I have back up plans. But now, I also have addiction to routine. And this takes away the need to be
addicted to something else. It’s a healthy routine and it makes me feel good. I do it for myself,
eating breakfast every morning, a good healthy breakfast, after a while you forget about the rest.
You forget you need an addiction.
I finally went and asked my Dad for help, but what I didn’t realise was every time I saw those eyes or
saw him upset I didn’t realise how much it was affecting me. Hurting the inner person, the kid inside
of me. So I went to mental health and asked them for help. Through a year of therapy, I realised
that my Dad was the problem. I was letting stimulants work for the horrible feeling that was always
in my life and I was living with it every day. I told my psychologist, once I figured out, and made the
recognition of what the problem was, my psychologist referred me on to a Partners in Recovery
service in the local area. And then this is the point where I got educated about schizophrenia, ways
to explain and cope with schizophrenia without having to wig out, coping strategies, things I need to
know to live with a mental illness and stay off drugs. The addiction was a symptom of mental health,
definitely.
I’ve now moved closer to my kids and I have accessed to community programs here, FSG and MIFQ.
Now I have support, it’s really cool.
The barriers I experienced were self-image, childhood trauma, but also homelessness. When I
became homeless, I had a job but there was just no way for me to keep that job. I had nowhere to
sleep. The general consensus of addicts that I had around me in my life back then was that services
were mind control. People have a weird perception of services out there. They were part of ‘The
Man’ they were part of the system. Also religion or being part of this cult was a huge barrier for me, I
had to get away from it, it altered my perception of reality, and I had to rewrite my own moral code.
And now…
So now I have reconnected with the good side of my family, seeing as there is nine of us, there are
two siblings I talk to regularly. My brother helps me to list everything I have done for the year and
this helps me shape what my life looks like for that year. The first year three years ago, I’d seen my
kids six times that year which was a massive improvement. My and now is, ending in 2015, I saw
my kids every month, even sometimes every fortnight. 14 – 16 total visits with them which has been
awesome. They are 13 and 14 years old now. 2015 was incredible, I got my own place to live, I’m

living on my own, kids come and visit me sometimes. Even this year, I had them for a week so
that’s really cool.

2. Emily’s Story
I was born into a cult. My mother named me Emily and the cult leader renamed me to the one I
have now. My mother and my biological father we're both in the cult I was in the cult from 0 to 2
years old. The cult was all about enlightenment and Buddhism and there was quite a number of
people who were involved in the cult. The cult turned very dark. I was severely neglected, tortured
and separated for long periods from my mother. The leaders used to do crazy shit, if their children
had a headache they would blame the other children. Supposedly, the other children had bad
energy. The cult either used to tap it out of us or hold us underwater. My family had to write letters
to their family to say goodbye and that they would never see them again. My grandparents didn't
know I existed until I was two. My mother went through a lot of psychological damage from
that. Mum was severely beaten and other pretty horrendous stuff. I have two half-brothers, who
were also born into the cult. It's a very messy family tree. My mother escaped the cult when I was
two without my biological father who stayed in the cult. She then went on to meet my step father
who I have always known as Dad.
I knew I always carried this with me but I could never name what it was. Now I know it as complex
trauma. I couldn't cognitively remember what happened. It's been a lifetime of trying to find out
information and questions, who am I? Who is my father? Why we all got different names? With a
very little bits and pieces I never got the full story. I have only just recently found out that I was held
underwater. I've only just been told for real. My Mother didn't tell me but she acknowledged it. My
mother struggles to face this reality herself.
Basically when my mother was in the cult, she gave up my brother my brother was two years older
than me. He was my half-brother because my brother's father had been kicked out. He was
severely beaten and then kicked out. My mother gave up my brother for his own safety. They gave
him a very hard time so my brother never grew up with us but contact was made when I was 8 or 9
years old with my brother. We started hanging out on the weekend and doing the family thing, he
would come over or I would go over there. My brother went on to sexually abuse me until just
before high school so to the ages of 12 to 13. In between that time, I found my birth certificate and I
found out that my father who I knew as Dad was not my biological father. My mother and
stepfather sat me down at 9 years old and I remember at that exact moment. I was devastated. My
mother was also very upset and said ‘I love your Step-dad, it doesn't matter because we are family’
but inside I was dying. I used to think if anyone was a phony it was her. But I didn't understand why, I
didn't understand why I thought that.

Growing up at school I was a very naughty kid. I was a tomboy. I used to bully and I used to bully
the bullies. I used to hang out with all the boys, I was very much scapegoated and was a very
naughty little girl. I was always at the principal's office. I could never concentrate. I thought I was so
dumb. I got a lot of flak at school for being different. That was a lot in primary school. Around eight
or nine, I started smoking cigarettes. It seemed to be a fun thing to do but it didn't last long. I got
busted and didn't do that again. The first time I got drunk was when I was 13, this is when my
mother and my stepfather broke up. I was very much attached to my father who had promised me
that he will always be a huge part of my life. He always promised me that he would be there but
after the breakup he had a massive breakdown, started drinking and smoking a shitload of weed. I
thought he had given up on me so I held a lot of resentment against him. I had my Mum feeding me
a whole lot of stuff about him. There was a sister born to my Mum and stepfather when I was nine
and he used to come and visit her and not me.
From there, in high school I then started smoking and drinking and smoking dope. By the time I was
14, I was pretty heavily into all of them. By the time I was 15, that’s when I started taking acid and
drinking so heavily I would fall into oblivion. I considered myself an alcoholic at 16. I used to think
there is something really really wrong with me. I used to hold my nose every afternoon and guzzle
my Mum's cask wine and then go and punch holes in the wall and windows. I remember just trying
to cry. I felt numbness but I also felt just a world of pain. I didn't understand and when I got drunk I
felt like I could blank it out. I know now that that wasn’t very healthy by smashing windows and
walls but the main part about it was being able to cry. I used to put really sad music on and be able
to let it out. I never understood what was happening. At around 15, I started questioning my
sexuality. I'm now gay and have been for a long time so there's a lot of stuff going on. Very
complex. I was heavily drinking, smoking, smoking weed and taking acid, my family has fallen apart.
There was so much shit involved in all of that.
At 17, I tried heroin, and got addicted straight up, it was very rapid. I tried it intravenously and I was
involved with lots of other people who was using it. Within 3 months, I had quite a substantial habit.
I was using it on a daily basis from the get go. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I didn't
know at a weekend away at my grandmothers that I was withdrawing from it. I went through severe
withdrawal symptoms and I didn't know what was going on. Within 3 months I was throwing up
blood and I was told by some dude that I was going to die within a month if I didn't seek help. I tried
to get help from a place in Brisbane. It was an old friend from school to talk me into going to the
service, but because I only had a $25 to $50 a day habit they turn me away. I was devastated
because I really need to help. Because I wasn't addicted enough I couldn't get the help. From there,

I got kicked out of home when my mother found out I had stolen some money from her, I was selling
pot to try and make money for my own habit with my boyfriend at the time.
I then went and swapped the ‘witch for the bitch’. I moved from heroin to methamphetamine
because I was told that heroin would kill me. I then proceeded to fall in love with a woman who was
a crystal meth addict. I always used intravenously, crystal meth was the end of me. I then went to
rehab when I was 19.
In between all of this I became a poly substance user. If I couldn't get crystal meth sometimes I
dabble in heroin, sometimes I would take a shitload of Valium. Or Serepax, I'd crush up the pills and
shoot them up, anything to get something. One day I took a shitload of Serepax, I received a phone
call. I told my friend about it, he rung an ambulance. I didn't know this was happening so the
ambulance came and I was taken to the local hospital. After I was discharged, I had an assessment
by the social worker. He talked to me about attending a rehabilitation centre. He said if I kept
shooting up pills, it was going to go to my heart and I was going to die. That's when I really started
to think about that. My life then got so bad that my stepfather came in and took me out of the
house that I was living in and made me go to rehab. I went to a public detox, I got there within a
week. I have an initial assessment through a local service. They were quite concerned, mind you I
didn't tell them about my poly substance abuse because I didn't think that was the issue, I thought it
was crystal meth. It was a long process then to get into rehab. It was about a 3 week wait to get in.
It felt like forever to me so I was under lock and key at my father's house. I then I got called to go, I
lasted 4 weeks I then went fuck this I don't want to be here and within 5 minutes of leaving I had a
needle up my arm.
Things then got a whole lot worse for me. At the age of 20, I completely lost my marbles. I was
using so much crystal meth, I was just in complete oblivion. I didn't care anymore. I thought I
would die a junkie. I got into a really crazy scene, where they were lots of really bad guys and a lot
of them used younger women to test out the drugs we didn't know that at the time. I've seen and
heard some crazy stories. Things that I never thought imaginable were happening, bikies and gangs,
the whole kit and caboodle. A lot of people involved in this one, I always just tried not to hear
things. I was in a very very bad way. I had PTSD and really really bad psychosis. I thought ghosts
were for coming out of walls. I thought radios for talking to me, I thought the world was going to
end and everything was linked. I could no longer distinguish what was real and what was not
anymore. I heard something about someone being murdered and buried out in a backyard and then

I thought the spirits for coming out of walls at me. I have no idea what was real and wasn't. I know
now but it was mental health and psychosis and the impact of severe trauma.
My life has been become so unmanageable and so crazy scary, I honestly think I got scared out of my
addiction. I just absolutely wanted out, I had reached my absolute rock bottom. I had no family
left they wanted nothing to do with me. My Mum has packed up all my stuff. I tried detox and just
kept failing. I'd run away or I wouldn't show up. My Mum had just had enough, she packed up all
my shit and said I don't want to see you anymore. I had no more relationship with my step father,
no connection to any of my friends, I just thought I was going to die a drug addict. Somehow, I got
myself out of it. I went and saw the doctor, a GP. They helped me to detox a different way with
Valium. I relapsed a couple of times, I finally then got through a detox program. I think there was
another 24 hour detox in between this time but I just ran away. After all of this I finally went back
to the original rehab that I had initially tried. I had my 21st birthday there. In 2000, I finished the
program. I did the halfway house then I had a few brief couple of busts, back on crystal meth but
rehab took me straight back in.
When I was at this rehab the first time, I missed out on a whole lot of learnings. I discovered that I
had a whole lot of co-dependency issues which related to all of my relationship. This was all I was
also addicted to this. I was completely dependent upon other people. I got into a relationship
within my first recovery which I did to try and avoid my stuff, then I went back to the rehab and had
my 22nd birthday in there. I had another 6 months in the program and then an additional month in
a halfway house then became the weekend supervisor. I then had another lapse. Within this lapse, I
used heroin and crystal meth. I then realised I had become so dependent on this service to save
me. I realised I didn't know any other life because all I had been was at this same rehab for 3
years. I felt like at this rehab, that once you have finished the program you will put straight in half
way and this meant but there was no transition. And really no trying to integrate back into the good
when community. It was just like bang, there you go. Therapeutic communities are brilliant and so
they work but there were a few things like boundaries that I really really hard with recovering
addicts. I know for me I got really dependent on the place. There are just so many ethical dilemmas
when working with recovering addicts, people with addictions, people in recovery I know in that
particular house we were all age under 30. We were young; we were vulnerable, I kind of got it.
Also for me, through this I had actually never worked. I never finished high school. I really had no
trainable skills. Luckily enough for me there was a golden opportunity that had arisen, where I had a
friend who was traveling overseas and asked me to go with him. I talked it over with my

psychologist and she said go and take the opportunity. My friend also lent me the money for a
working visa and the money in the bank to be able to travel. The psychologist and I talked about my
life going on in circles and this was the chance to break the cycle.
So I did it, I went overseas and I stayed clean. I had nobody enabling me, I had no one to depend
upon but myself. I had to work otherwise I would starve. It was the most terrifying but liberating
experience of my life. I was over there with my friend for 10 months, so I did have someone there
pretty much in the same boat. He ended up going home and I ended up staying. I went to work in
the Highlands in Scotland, I started by washing dishes and I worked my way up, to learning how to
waitress then I work then behind the bar and reception. I came home to visit and ended up meeting
a very nice young lady and she came back overseas with me because I had a job to go back to. I was
an Assistant Manager, she stayed with me and we stayed clean. We were together for 5 and a half
years. Things were really really good. We both chose to have complete sobriety. When we broke
up, I had had a total of 8 years clean. In the time that I had been away, my step mother had passed
away. After my mother and stepfather had broken up, he had met this lady, and he had a
relationship with her for 10 years. I felt very very close to her, she was the first person I told about
my abuse by my brother. When that all came, there was a whole lot of inward conflict within my
family. There were restraining orders keeping my brother away. So when she passed away I came
back and looked after my Dad my little sister, I worked for a year in hotels.
All this time I never went to Narcotics Anonymous. I had a lot of people in recovery who were
friends of mine so I never really meshed with NA. I thought I had moved on from being an addict
and it to me it felt like it was a past life. So I became complacent, when my partner and I had broken
up I started to casually drink and I had a series of spiralling relationships over 4 years. Just by doing
that, I had burnt myself into such a hole by repeating the same patterns of behaviour. I just never
thought I was good enough without having somebody there, it was like some sort of self-fulfilling
prophecy.
During all of this, I decided I wanted to go to uni and become a social worker. I was sick of working
for wankers and I wanted something more and I wanted to make a difference especially after what I
had been through. The help that I had gotten social work really stuck out for me. I have never finish
school, I didn't even know if I could do this. I did a Bridging course at Sunshine Coast Uni I then got
in. I then transferred to Griffith Uni. I completed my degree, I had one bust of heroin 4 years ago
which was when my partner and I had broken up and I started to casually drink but I'd never touched
it since then because it scared the crap out of me. I then finished my social work degree. I did a

placement at a torture and trauma organisation for asylum seekers and refugees. I also went to
India, and did a placement working in slum communities. I then got a job at the torture and Trauma
service and I worked there for 10 months and then I went into full blown relapse.
I haven't touched crystal meth for 12 years and the crystal meth that I had knew that long ago had
completely changed. I had this bust, I had had too many drinks, I went and found some stuff. It was
like a weekend binge, I have had ongoing counselling back in Australia for sexual assault for quite a
number of years, and even when I was working I was doing sexual assault counselling for me. I really
thought I'd had everything under wraps, but what I didn't know is that I was being triggered by my
early trauma that I had experienced. The stuff that I had even experienced as a baby. I was
constantly so distressed. I knew what vicarious trauma was and yes I did have vicarious trauma but I
didn't know what it was. It went on such a deeper level. I was having nightmares and I was really
suffering. After this weekend binge I went yep I'll never do that again but within two months I
resigned from my job. And I went into full blown relapse. I just wanted to completely get rid of
everything that I had been told at the trauma organisation. It was not only be stories, it was also
that these people have been so downtrodden by a government and treated so poorly I just felt so
powerless all of the time. I knew I was getting burnt out in the job and I knew I was getting vicarious
trauma but what I didn't know is that I was constantly being triggered. I didn't even know that I've
been tortured; I haven't even comprehended that in my head.
My next relapse was very bad, it was cyclic for me. I would continue to say ‘yes, I can beat the drug’.
I tried all different options other than rehab, I tried Currumbin Clinic, I lasted a week. Again I ran
away and used. I did a really quick assessment with Currumbin with a psychiatrist and then I got in
straight away. I'm generally iffy about psychiatrists because I've seen quite a few and I've never
liked one of them. I actually think that they are a barrier to service delivery. I was actually detoxing
while I was in Currumbin so I got through the 5 days. It's funny the protocol there is that you are
allowed your phone and your laptop and all your other possessions and my dealer kept ringing me. I
changed my mind. I got triggered and I left. They then called the cops on me, they were ringing my
sister, and I was like what the fuck? They were accusing me of the way I left and I said back to them,
what that I quietly left, packed my bag and left. When I rang them the next day because I was on
antidepressants since my first stint in the first rehab. I got really pissed off with the psychiatrist
there. I just thought this bloke has no fucking idea. Some of the nurses were really lovely when I
was detoxing, but I just couldn't get into it. It was just so clinical I just like the therapeutic
community stuff and so it wasn’t for me. After all this I ended up ringing my father. I was absolutely
losing the plot from withdrawing both of my antidepressant medication and methamphetamine.

Currumbin Clinic refused to give me my script for my antidepressant medication because of the way
that I left. I told them they had no right to keep my script and the detox was in some ways worse
from this medication but they didn't listen to me. They then had to ring a psychiatrist to get
permission to give me back my script.
My drug of choice was now methamphetamine, in the 12 years I hadn't use this drug, it had changed
so much it was so much stronger than anything that I have ever had before. It is 20 times as strong
as it used to be and it is just so addictive. It just got me so quick again and it was interesting to see
how quickly my old addict mind jumped in again. My addiction was in full swing again. I knew
what I was doing again. I spent thousands of dollars redrawing on my loans and my credit cards, I
spent any savings I had and more, I didn't give a shit. I then took to the streets because I didn't
know anybody anymore. I got ripped off a dozen times but I just didn't care as long as I could get
on. I just wanted to get out of this place and I didn't have the balls to kill myself, I just wanted to be
in oblivion and I was hopeful that the drug would kill me in the meantime. I could not cope with
how I felt anymore. I felt like I was dead inside. I just wanted something to make me feel better. I
hadn't been in a relationship for a couple of years by then, then the job went then I felt like a
failure. I felt like I had let my clients down. Honestly I was devastated I felt so attached to them. It
was the kind of work where you are almost the only person that that person can depend on. I was a
good worker and I believe I was an even better counsellor but really just not good at protecting
myself.
I then went and tried outpatients again. I went there on my first day I got so triggered by all of these
free needles and then I got on again. I tried them to get into a public detox. I was on the phone a
lot to a Brisbane Drug Help online service where they tell you where you can get help and that was
fantastic, and when I spoke to them they gave me options they said to me I can go here, I can go
there and what kind of services they delivered so it was excellent. A lot of the people I spoke to or
through their other services were fantastic and so helpful that I went to for an assessment. I found
out you couldn't smoke and then said no fucking way and there was a week waiting list and they also
said I would only detox for 4 days.
I then went down south to live with my stepfather and his wife. I stayed there for three months and
I got clean. Came back here and lasted 24 hours and was back on methamphetamine. Four days
later I nearly died. I had a very adverse reaction to what I think was something synthetic. My body
had come up in something like third degree burns. I have neuropathy in my feet now because of
it. It was a four day bender. I had gotten on a lot of it because I just wanted to be in oblivion

again. So, when my family had found out again my father flew from down south, he packed the car
up and drove back down to take me out of here all together. Meanwhile, I kept sneaking out and
using while he was packing up the house in the car, when we had gotten to Canberra I had conspired
to get drugs sent down to me but I fessed up. My Dad was over it, he was in tears. He’s quite a sick
man physically and he just said to me I can't help you anymore. He said he didn’t know what to do.
Knowing that I have depleted my own father I went ok, I'm going to go to rehab. I rang the old
director of the rehab I first attended then told me about this rehab. I rang up and got an
assessment, and it all went pretty quickly from there. It was a few weeks and I had to detox, I was 3
weeks clean before I came in here. The only barrier I had getting into this rehab was that I was a
woman but they told me that at assessment because they have been a large influx of males into the
rehab recently.
I understand from my early days of drinking and drugging that services have gotten a whole lot
better, but I think there a serious gap in the way that addiction is treated. Like for instance
Currumbin Clinic it is so clinical they are trying to fit every addict into the same box. I think this
rehab does that to a certain extent too but as a therapeutic community it is excellent. Therapeutic
communities just work so well but they can still be a gap because at the end of the day everyone is
treated the same but not everybody is the same person. Even this rehab criteria, not having a
mental illness, but as we know 99% of people who come into the service have dual diagnosis. There
is a reason why addicts become addicted. When I came here I was so highly suicidal but I didn't say
anything about that because I knew that it might compromise my place here. I have now told that to
psychologists and psychiatrists here but I was worried at that assessment but they wouldn't take me
in.
And now...
I was in such a deep depression and I was 6 months clean again yesterday. But the last couple of
weeks, have been the only time since this has happened that I have said to myself I think I can
actually do this. And for the first time it's just about not using but for me I want to actually do life
now. I’m no longer falling back into suicidal ideation, I'm actually now believing I can do this. I am
feeling so much more empowered and I have a zest for life. It feels like I am not just recovering from
drugs but from life, I just got defeated. It is still early days to me but the fact that I am even thinking
about finishing the program and going into transition and having those little snippets of
empowerment and going back into community.

I feel like out of all of this, I finally hold hope. I have to take baby steps because usually I jump quite
quickly into things and I now know that I'm not quite ready, but I hold hope and that's what's
important. No matter what you go through I have no idea what the future holds but I'm willing to
work my ass off for it and until I get what I deserve. It's time. I am vulnerable and I am scared but I
will take it one day at a time. Now at this point of my life it's either death or do.

3. Dante’s Story
My birth was traumatic in itself. I was born D.O.A. I not only nearly died, I nearly killed my mother. I
nearly split her in half. I have always carried that blame with me. When I found out, it was just
another thing that I carried with me.
I have a good relationship with my Mum, but until I came into rehab, it was more of a brother/sister
relationship. I was very co-dependent on my family and they were very co-dependent on me. I was
brought up as a small adult. When my sister was born, I looked after her. I would get her ready for
school, do all the parental stuff. There are two years between us. We are like twins. We were very
very close.
We moved around a lot to follow Dad’s work. Lots of different schools. Because of this, we never
really made friends. It was always just me and my sister against the world. We used to be a lot
closer than what we are now. Life got in the way there though.
I always felt a bit different. I was always the kid in the corner of their playground, who read their
book. I was quite an angry kid, always bigger than the other kids, so I’d tend to hurt other kids,
other people a lot. During this period, this is when my Godfather steps into the picture and I was
sexually abused by him at around 6 -8 years of age.
I noticed I was really different to the other kids in late primary school. It was the point where I
realised I didn’t really like girls. I was so much more interested in the boys in the class. I was caught
experimenting with one of my friends in my bedroom. This was in central Queensland where we
stayed for at least three years, so it was really the only chance to grow a connection with another
person. It was mostly pushed under the carpet by Mum. Mum and I are close but she scares the
shit out of me. Even to this day, she stills scares the shit outta me. This is when Mum noticed the
most dramatic change in me. I went from a very cuddly child to very standoffish, very isolated. No
connection with anyone, really unstable household. Didn’t want to be around anyone. From here
we continued to move a lot, there was a lot of aggression at home. Before I went to high school, we
lived as far north as Cairns, and as far south as Canberra. There was a lot of drugs involved. Drugs
have always been a part of my life. Mum and Dad were never happy. Dad had a series of mistresses.
He was also found addicted to cocaine. Mum and Dad didn’t last after this, Mum found one of the
letters from one of the mistresses, I came home from school one day, she was crying on the couch,
she said that she had had enough, and got out of it. So we all moved back down to the Northern
Rivers.

Growing up in the Northern Rivers as well, Marijuana is everywhere. It’s part of life. My earliest
memories of my grandmother’s house is picking buds off stalks. My mother always drank every
night, and my grandmother, at the age of 70, still has been known to take Ecstasy. She’s a hippie,
from way back. My grandma really, was like my Mum. Mum had me when she was really young,
at 17. So Oma was a big part of our lives. Especially when we were younger, Mum was hardly there,
Dad was never there and that’s how it worked.
I can remember my mother and father fighting for at least five years after their breakup. I feel like I
made the worst mistake of my life at this point. My sister and I got this bright idea that if one of us
went to live with Dad, it would make him happy. So we played a game of Monopoly for two weeks,
trying to see who would win. Whoever would win, got to stay with Mum. I deliberately lost. My
sister always had more of a connection with Dad than I did, so I Iet her go to Dads. Things got better
for a little while, she was then changing, she started isolating herself away, distant and really angry
with me, and with Mum. Through this, Mum started seeing another guy as well, and fell pregnant
with my little brother.
Then, at 15, I was staying with Dad, he had taken on a second job, he got home from work late one
night, I was sleeping in his bed. He tried to sexually abuse me. He didn’t get too, I was a big tall boy,
I was able to get away. I just got myself out of the situation and I ran, I ran as far as I could. I
realised I had nowhere to go, I came home and asked Dad if he could take me home the next day.
He was off his face.
It wasn’t until much later in life, and Mum and I have since talked about all of this, it is one of the
reasons why she left him. She was subjected to some brutal things. He has a sex addiction but that
is no excuse. Such a weak prick. This is why I feel so guilty about my sister, when I told her what
had happened, she told me that it had been happening for over two years. And that’s why I feel
guilty, and I don’t play Monopoly anymore.
We confronted Dad, both of us. And we told Mum. Mum was furious. Because of her history. That
was something she had always tried to protect us from, and she never thought that of our father. So
she asked us if we wanted to confront him and I said ‘fuck yeah’. He still denies it to this day. He
was asleep, he doesn’t remember. My sister is still pretty fucked up to be honest, she’s addicted to
video games, she is agoraphobic, and has completely isobubbled herself away, she is hiding.
This turned me into the Protector. I wanted to protect everyone in my family from that point on.
My brother was born when I was 15, his father also had massive issues. And I saw what he was

trying to do to my family. And I got him out of our lives. Since then, because I put myself into this
Protector space, me and my family against the world that really drove the rest of my life. That is
probably when the co-dependency really started. From this point on, if Mum was in trouble I
would drop everything for her, and I have. I moved countries to be with my family.
After that, the family unit split again, my last year of high school. I moved in with my grandmother to
finish high school in the Northern Rivers. The rest of my family went to Sydney. Mum was struggling
with my sister, and my brother so just before my HSC, I dropped everything and moved to Sydney to
be with them. Did my HSC in Sydney and failed miserably. Mum helped me pack up everything, and
move back to Northern Rivers, my Mum told me to go and soar. I moved back up to Northern Rivers
and did my HSC again, did amazingly, went back to my old school, got my own house and got a job.
It was all just me, I knew it was just me against the world and I did it. I lost all my weight, and
straight after high school I went to University. I studied Naturopathy, found myself a boyfriend.
But at this point I was smoking a shitload of weed. I’d been smoking weed since 14. I kept smoking
up until the age of about 25. I dropped out of Naturopathy in my final year. I had man trouble, we
were together for three years. Just before we broke up, we were using a huge amount. It was quite
a verbally abusive relationship. Drugs were always the first priority. We tried so many different
types of everything, but everything still organic at that stage. When you are a Naturopath you see
the world in a completely different way, drugs included.
I have always had a chronic mental health diagnosis and I am only just going through the process of
being diagnosed now. This is huge for me. It has a lot to do with the trauma stuff but because I
never dealt with it in the past, if I had dealt with it, I wouldn’t have these problems arising now. I
have just been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. All the different parts of myself are
all taking on their own personalities. It is one of the reasons I started taking drugs, because I self-
harmed.
After Sydney, Mum wanted to go home, she was born over in Holland. My Opa was quite sick at this
time; she decided to move back over there. After this breakdown, I decided to move to Amsterdam
too. It was here where I gave up Pot, when I got on that plane I vowed I would never touch it again
and I didn’t. I was using pills and dabbled in speed a bit over there. It was more recreational. I was
there for 1.5 years. When I got back, I tried to go back to uni to finish my degree, and I met my ex –
husband. He owned some hotels, he was a heavy drinker and I wasn’t really a drinker at that stage.
I then started drinking more and more with him. He was a pathological liar and a con artist who was
constantly getting himself into trouble with whatever he did. We ended up moving all over the

fucking place. I dropped uni to be with him. He got in trouble with the hotel because he was
pissed on shift. So we moved to Sydney to get away. In Sydney, he knew a lot of people, we are
drinking like fishes every night. He knew of a drug dealer, and he introduced me to Special K, GBH
and shitloads of pills. This was almost every night. We just used to get off our faces. He then
started to get really possessive of me. He needed to know where I was, what I was doing, who I was
doing it with. He started looking after my money. He then gave me an allowance. I wasn’t allowed
contact with my family, he saw them as evil. It was partner violence, highly domestically violent. I
got home from a club one night, he has disappeared. I had a text message saying that I was fucked
up, and that I was cheating on him, so he left. I felt so much lighter and so much better.
Eight months later, he contacted me again, saying that he missed me, and he really needed me, he
wanted me as part of his life. I fell for it. I got back with him. He was in Canberra. I lied to all my
friends and everyone who cared about me, and said I’d met somebody else and I was moving to
Canberra. He lied to them all, he’s stolen money from people. Some of this I knew about, some of it
I didn’t. I had it in my heart that I could change him. I could make him better. Then we moved to
Brisbane. And again it was a long string of… it was okay for a while, and then he’s get really
aggressive, and violent and progressively more violent. Until this one stage where, I got home from
work, I’d been pulling 16 hour shifts. And I got home from, work one day, he could barely stand. He
went to swing at me, and I pushed him and he just went down. I heard his head hit the wall, and it
was the most violent I had ever been in my life. I am not a fighter. I’ve never been one to swing my
fists. I picked him up because he was comatose, put him on the front porch, called up one of his
friends, told him to come and pick him up. Called the landlord and got them to change the locks.
Packed up all his shit, put it out on the porch with him. Then I called my Mum. My Mum had moved
from Amsterdam to England. I said ‘I’ve done it, I have gotten rid of him finally’. She asked me
what I was going to do next, she suggested that I go over to England for a holiday, I organised that,
did that. A month visit, turned into five years.
While I was over there, my Mum and her new partner had bought a house in Cambridge, but while I
was there my Opa died. We went and organised the funeral, two weeks after that my Mum’s
partner had decided that he has had enough of the relationship and walked out on my Mum for his
secretary. Again I took on the Protector role, my brother was finishing high school, my Mum was
finishing uni. She wasn’t working and my brother wasn’t working, so I got a job. And I became the
caretaker again. Meanwhile I was drinking like a fish. I had not stopped drinking, since 2004/5 I
hadn’t had a point of sobriety until I came to this rehab. I had moved to just alcohol by then, it was

easier to get a hold of; I didn’t have a lot of money. Everything I did have was going back into the
house, paying for travel, paying for bills.
The turning point was that I was caught out drinking at work; my boss confronted me and said, you
need to do something. They knew I had a problem, but they knew it was getting worse. I would
wake up, and drink, go to work. I wouldn’t usually drink at work, but the lines got blurred. He
confronted me and I just, he said ‘you have a problem, we are here for you, but you have a
problem’. I was still in a huge denial phase. I’m alright, it’s not a problem, and I’ve just had a big
night – the usual excuses.
And so I ran, that is one of my behaviours. If I’m confronted, people start to get to know me, I
change locations, so booked a ticket and came back to Australia. Left a really good job, my own
house, all my stuff, didn’t sell just walked away from it all. I came back to Australia, didn’t have a
house, didn’t have anywhere to fall back onto, and stayed in between, my grandmother and my
Mum, who also moved back. I was pretty much living in a tent and living in my Grandmother’s
backyard. I was getting by on Centrelink and receiving odd jobs from a family member, odd cash
here and there. But most of my time, consisted of me in a tent, with a bottle of vodka. I did try
going back to uni, I knew I had to try and do something. I also knew I was sick of hospitality. I’d
been doing it since the age of 17, and had worked my way up into every possible role you could
possibly think of. I thought enough was enough; I wanted to get better, give up drinking, because I
thought I could like I did getting off Marijuana. I thought I could just get on that plane and that
would be it. I am the King of Adaptability and Mimicry, it would be over. But nope. The problems
followed me this time. Got back here, thought I could get a part time job, in managerial hospitality
work. But I soon realised, you know needed a Diploma in Hospitality to get work now. So I thought
I’ll go back to uni, become a teacher instead, even in. Hospitality I was always the training Manager,
helping the new staff watching them grow; it was something I always really enjoyed. Planting a seed
and watching it go to fruition.
Being back in the Northern Rivers brought up a lot of shit for me. Brought all the memories back. I
have been through so much, my lowest point was actually finding a thumbprint size of hair missing
from my beard. I have Alopecia now, losing all the hair. It was when I found a certain spot that I
had lost. That was the moment that I had lost it. I could deal with everything else, but I couldn’t
deal with that. I went out, I bought two 1 litre bottles of Vodka, got home, drank one of them and
decided that this how it would end for me. That was nine days before rehab.
And now…

Part of my mental illness, my brain goes nonstop. I now need to learn without drugs and without
alcohol, how to calm myself without distractions. Letting them just be. Recovery for me is living my
diagnosis. Looking for my identity, so I have two psychologists, one I am doing trauma with, and the
other I am doing identity stuff with. And with help, I am trying to piece myself back together. While
I am seeing them I can’t do DBT, but I’d like to do it. Swimming helps, mindfulness, doing things
that occupy me. Reading a book, listening to music. Anything to calm them. I am looking for
balance and finding a way to live with my diagnosis. In the future, I’d love to do this kind of stuff
and help others. I feel like I am a Protector, a Listener and a Healer and this is how I want to live.

4. Michael’s Story
Right at the beginning, it’s had such an impact. I was abandoned by my biological parents, and I
went as a ward of the state to Sydney, I lived in a home until I was three and a half years. I am
working through the Lotus Project which is the ‘Lost Australians’, so they do have some
information but I haven’t been willing to go down and pick it up or see it just at the moment. I was
then adopted by abusive, adoptive foster parents. The mother was an alcoholic, and they adopted
three children, I was the middle one and everything that went wrong was straightaway my fault. So
my mother would come down at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, drunk and would abuse me, so I
never really slept much.
My next memory is a 7 or eight years old. My father would beat me physically, punching and the
strap and everything else, and my mother would verbally abuse me. My mother would come out
with all of these outrageous accusations. I was then sent off to juvenile detention several times
through no real fault of my own. However this also made me very angry and bitter. According to
police it was out of control anger, but really it was just things out of my control. I was only really
quite young, probably only 11 or 12, they never really did bother to ask me much about the
background, it was all from Mum and Dad. I got to a point where, I put my fists through a couple of
windows, through the front door, I was in there several times. So to negate my anger, I started
playing football for school. Whether my parents really wanted me to play, I did anyway. I needed to
do something, so then they found out, they kicked me out at fifteen years old, so I went and lived in
a tent for twelve months. Living in a caravan park at that age, you are open to all sorts of abuse with
drugs and alcohol. So I did get into drugs and alcohol at that stage, before then, I’d had a sip every
now and then. Because of my home life, I had to concentrate on other things, my concentration
went to schooling. Schooling for my own sake and football for my anger. I probably worked as hard
as I should of, but only half as hard as I could of. I used to drink quite a bit, the sporting culture back
in my football days. You’d have the Best and Fairest and of course you had to scull 50 beers, every
time your glass was empty they would have to fill it. But because I was playing football, I had plenty
of exercise there as well and I can’t remember but I think I was eating reasonably healthy, we’d
always have a BBQ at the weekend, all the friends and that. And that of course, involved touch
football and drinking.
I always had a penchant for manufacturing; it’s very similar to cooking. You have the raw
ingredients, the processes involved and the finished product. I spent 25 years in manufacturing;
unfortunately it’s a dying breed as well. I studied through all the workplaces I was in, I probably

have 40 or 50 TAFE certificates, a Diploma of Business, a whole heap of other courses like
Workplace, Health and Safety and other things that just interested me like IT which I did by myself
and ITP just to keep myself amused. I think with the alcohol, I was what you would call a functioning
alcoholic. I think it got pretty bad when I was in a management position and the job that I agreed to
was initially training and then I went to a planning role for Australia and South East Asia. But my
strength was always in listening and being able to talk to people. I asked for a transfer back out on
the floor. It was more my passion, I’m not the type of person who enjoys sitting in an office chair, I’d
prefer to be out and about amongst the machinery, watching the processes, watching the
people. When I went into this role on the floor, it went to rotating shifts, and that is why I am
pretty sure I had anxiety before anything was diagnosed. Rotating shifts was when the alcohol got
really bad. I couldn’t sleep, I could never sleep. It got to a point where I was using alcohol to sleep
which is a bit sad but that was the way it was. The shifts were day then night then afternoon, and I
did a lot of weekends as well. So you would have one day off if you were lucky and then suddenly
the shifts had changed again. It was getting to a point through, after night shift, especially on a
Friday morning, we’d all go down to the early opener, 30 of us, eventually the hotel decided to put
on breakfast for us. But that also made us stay for an extra couple of hours as well. So it was
probably better for them, not us! We all got very close on those shifts, because there was really
nothing else external to us, so everything gets tied into work and the people who work for you. It
probably isn’t the best scenario, having the people who work for you, socialize with you as well,
however I did make some very good friends, and they respected me for who I was and what I did.
During that period, which probably caused more stress, I had a number of people who, because I
was the Shift Manager, I was in charge of security as well, I had a number of people who tried
stealing things. Two guys who punched me, a couple of guys come at me with Stanley knives. A guy
came around to my house with a broken long neck beer bottle, and tried stabbing me. I sacked a
guy who I later found out was part of the Triads, so it was starting to really get to me.
It was around this point that my first wife left. When I started drinking, instead of being open and
upfront about it, I started hiding bottles in the garbage bin. Hiding bottles in the garage, which
people with addictions tend to do? They don’t want to face up to it. They don’t want to believe
there is a problem, so therefore out of sight out of mind. She had planned to leave for quite some
time, because while I was at work one day had all her clothes, all of our antiques and she was
halfway to Brisbane by the time I got home from work. It was just another abandonment I
suppose.

Soon after this my sister took her own life, she was in a now infamous bus crash, she was the only
one of my siblings that I’d speak to and trust, she was four years younger, so I sort of looked after
her a bit because by the time I got kicked out, the issues started going against her. After the bus
accident she went into Depression and took her own life. I then started taking too much time off on
night shift, Iike if I was starting up on the Sunday night, I’d try to stay up all of Saturday night, so I
could sleep Sunday and I’d be drinking all of Saturday night and then I still couldn’t get to sleep. This
was after being there for 12 years. Nine of those years were rotating shifts. So it was then getting to
a point where I was having to drink more, just to have the same effect so I could sleep which I means
I was drinking for longer. So instead of stopping at 7 o’clock, because I had to open up the whole
factory etc. I was finishing at 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock, so yeah a couple of times I did go in more
likely to be over the limit, because I only lived around the corner. It went to not only drinking on
night shift, I then started doing it on afternoon shifts, unfortunately now I am addicted to reading
books but back then, I was addicted to computer games, which didn’t help. I’d be sitting down
playing my computer games, role play type games as an escapism, but I’d be drinking and before I’d
even know it, it would be 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning, and I didn’t even realize the time had gone. I
eventually totally gave that up though, it’s just no good. So eventually the Management decided
that I should resign or they would sack me, I actually resigned, but then I took them to court for
unfair dismissal anyway. I won that. It was just to prove a point. It wasn’t about taking the
company down, I had worked for them for a long time and I didn’t want to take the bosses down
either. It was just something that I needed to do, just to prove to myself that I was better than what
they made me out to be.
After this I moved back to Brisbane. I then moved jobs. I worked as a Production Manager and I was
commuting from the Gold Coast at the time. I was sometimes doing 15 hour days. Long days and
challenging. I was drinking heavily during this time. The Manager, if I was doing over 14/15 hours
days he would put me up in a hotel, so we’d stay at the pub. My second wife came and worked
with me at this job. I then swapped jobs again to another management position, it was a really
good job. I was brought in to fix the morale, morale was terrible, productivity was low, and people
just took sickies, because they had no trust in the system or the company. I did a lot of work with
the National Operations Manager, I’d fly to Melbourne quite regularly, and let him know what was
going on.
My now second wife, she left me. Just before I got married, I had three properties. We got married
in 2005, and by 2009, all the properties were gone, money was gone. Problem was, we were
probably the worst people to be together, she was a gambler, and I was a drinker. She’d go and

gamble, we’d still be at the same place but I’d be drinking. It was possibly the worst possible person
I could have hooked up with. We both fed each other’s addictions. She drank as well. In 2009, I
sent her off back to Serbia to see her Grandmother for the last time, as she was quite ill and she
just never came back home. I carried on for one more year after this.
2010 I left my job again and I started to isolate really badly, to a job picking orders. I chose a job
with 4am starts, so I’d finish at noon, and one part of my delusional plan, it gave me an opportunity
to get down to the bottle shop or the pub, to be in bed by 6pm so I could rise again at 2pm. I started
accessing Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Service in Inala. It was the first time I had really
accessed something before. I’m not sure if it was any good for me. The counsellor down there was
excellent, but they had a doctor down there, he was not good.
At this stage I no longer had a licence, I’d lost my licence in 2009 twice and once again in 2010. I was
having to walk or catch a cab. I’d had a couple more DUI’s before this, but this one really affected
me. I lost my licence for two years. I stayed in this job until 2014, until I got the sack for being over
the limit in the morning. I went to another job but it was only for four months, work was no longer
sustainable. I think I had some sort of Depression and I was binge drinking pretty badly and even
thought I had been drinking pretty badly before I now didn’t have a job, no real prospects, the safety
net had gone. Where I was living, there were six bottle shops around me so I would go to a different
one each day. Interestingly I rarely ever got knocked back but when you get to a point like that. You
do the math, you think, how much have I got, how much is in the cupboard and the fridge, how
much do I need for the next day. This is when I started feeling really bad, I was crying for days at a
time. I hadn’t ever felt like this before. This was the point where I started to access all these
different counsellors. Over about an 18 month period, I saw about seven different doctors, spoke to
14 or 15 counsellors, each of the doctors told me a different prognosis, nobody mentioned anything
about mental health, it was always just about alcohol. The counsellors, I would share my story, that
was the first session and then after three, they’d say okay can’t talk to you anymore. I’d ask who can
I speak to, they would put me on to someone else. One doctor put me on one medication, a
suppressant. One doctor gave me a different suppressant, one doctor said ‘just try
abstinence’. Another doctor said you’ve got to have one nip of scotch every day. So, all of these
totally apposing things that these doctors wanted me to do. And yet, there was no framework. One
of the doctors actually even looked it up in a book and then prescribed me a medication.
I woke up one morning, there was blood all over me and all over the floor, not sure if I had had a
seizure or I just fell down. At that stage I called a Detox in Brisbane. At that time, I thought if I just

get myself detoxed… I was in there for eight days, I had no idea of where I was going or what I was
going to do after that, I just wanted to get better. While I was in there, I was speaking to one of the
counselors, and I found a brochure for a rehabilitation clinic. So I gave them a call and I think I did an
intake one day and two days later, they said they had a room for me. It was a therapeutic
community model and I was there for six months. At the time I thought it was really good, I met
some really nice people with similar issues. After leaving these I am dead against them. Some of the
counselors were very passionate about what they did, but there were 36 residents there and I got
one of the nurses as a counselor, over that six month period I spoke to him three times, and all he
did was reference me back to the therapeutic community, where peers help each other. But my
argument is, if we can’t help ourselves, how on earth are we meant to help one another? It was
great because I met great people, however since then I thought a lot of those people would be
friends for a long time. I learnt new skills, and loved working in the kitchen for eleven weeks and out
in the grounds. I kept in touch with four people, but it was probably the worst four I could have
chosen. I then moved to rehabilitation on the Gold Coast within their halfway house. They put me
in for two weeks to learn the program and then I moved out. I was in the first house which was
really good, then they put me in the second house, and because the second house was full of people
from the rehabilitation centre which I felt was too small and I had come from the rehabilitation in
Brisbane which had big grounds and cows next door to the property. When I first moved into that
second house, these guys started talking over the top of me or through me. Wouldn’t even
acknowledge that I was even there. I put up with that for three weeks and then that made me want
to isolate more, so I started going walking during the afternoons just to get some fresh air. And after
a couple of weeks of doing that, I went to the pub, had a beer. I admitted to it, but the next morning
I was kicked out.
So then, got in touch with the other people from Logan House, and I moved in with one of
them. We’d made a pact of no alcohol in the house, no friends bringing alcohol over. It worked for
a few more weeks, but the person who I stayed with was local to the area. It wasn’t too long before
he was back on it, going down the pub and then coming home drunk. He then started bringing beer
home, I isolated more, going into my room and reading my book, and then his mates would come
home and mates home I eventually succumbed to it. Sick of just leaving all my space, all my
furniture being wrecked by him and his mates. The owner decided to move back in to her own unit
which was probably a godsend in January 2015, however I didn’t have anywhere to go. During this
period I went to the hospital numerous times, asking for help. Just before I was kicked out of the
house, I went to the local hospital, they detoxed me. My anxiety was really bad at that point, I

couldn’t walk, and I was shaking really badly, so they gave me a walker, and took me upstairs to the
physical rehab ward. I spent a month in there and they were really good.
I lived in my car for a few more days after this and then I got in contact with another person from
the rehab and that is where I am living now. It is a little room with a small TV, I have a toasted
sandwich maker, a jug and small fridge. It’s fully furnished, so I put everything in storage. I am now
living there. But then we started drinking together. In July last year, she I tried to detox myself at
home. At the end of the two weeks, I saw some boxes and it was full of their stuff and she didn’t
talk to me about it. None of those people from the rehab have spoken to me since July last
year. Whether it is because I am trying to do the right thing, and I am sick of people having alcohol
around me, and I feeling compelled. So I don’t know. I also struggle to leave the house now, I
have worked with support to have a number of strategies now, either to get to the library or to
completely avoid bottle shops when I go to the shops. I love going to the park but sometimes that
just triggers me as well. I over analyze things but I just have to keep working different strategies.
Yesterday, I drove for the first time in seven months. I had been concerned that I was going to hurt
somebody or someone else. I have medication I can take, it is with me now, but I am scared I just
don’t want to become addicted to something else. When I was going to AODs on the Gold Coast, I
was doing one of their back in control programs. Initially it was okay because there were only three
or four people and the staff were really good, but one of the staff, a woman left, and the class sizes
going up and up and I could feel my anxiety going up and up, halfway through, I’d take medication
just to sit there, with my anxiety tend to throw up a lot or gag. The biggest class size was 14 people
and I went and was sick. One of the teachers came out after I had thrown up, because I don’t eat a
great deal, she told one of the Managers that I had been drinking. I hadn’t been. I went once more,
but one of the Social Workers called me the night before and said make sure you don’t have any
alcohol in your system. But he insisted I go and get breathalyzed, the next morning before I went to
the course. I haven’t been back since.
The support I have now is incredibly positive. The only negative experience I had was with a doctor
at the local private clinic, I spent two hours there, I was hoping for at least a change in my
medication or a different option. The only thing I have to stop myself drinking now is to lock myself
up, or not go out. That is why I needed some help from this psychiatrist, or some medication to help
with this.
At this point I just thought I was still stressed and not sleeping, and I still didn’t recognize the
anxiety. It has only been since I met Sandra at Partners in Recovery in 2014 that I found out that I

have a mental health issue. That anxiety is a mental health issue. Prior to that, I didn’t really know
I was just covering it with alcohol, when you look all the way through my story, I worked hard at
school, I worked hard at jobs, I did the best for others, I didn’t look after myself. Even though I
didn’t get along with the guys I am living with, I am truly making an attempt with them just so I have
some interaction day to day, as I don’t really have any social interaction just at the moment. Other
than calling my ex-wife and I speak to her at least once a day.
You look at when I was gaming, and now I am into books, I don’t leave my room without a book in
my hand, it’s something I genuinely love to do but not that I leave my room very much at all. It is all
escapism, because I didn’t understand how I was. Seems like a whole heap of things keep
occurring, anything I used to just brush off before, and just not care about, just hits me, like
standing up against a big wave, washing over me, it pushes me backwards. But before, I feel like I
was diving underneath it and missing the whitewash.
And now…
Initially I just want to start going to some businesses and start to talk to people, even I am trying to
interact with the people at home. Expanding my social circle. I am doing a bit of cooking now and it
makes me feel good. Looking after my nutrition as well. My Support Worker has linked me with a
cooking group and I am looking forward to doing that soon. I would also now, with the knowledge I
have I want to get more help around my mental health needs.

5. Ayshe’s Story
I was born into a drug environment. So I am 25 years old, and I have a bit of a story for a 25 year
old. I was born, my parents made drugs together, my Mum was a cook, and she is a gambling addict
too. There are a lot of other addicts in my family. Some of my childhood memories are going into
my Dad’s hydro rooms to stack up sticks of weed for him as early as three or four years old. It’s
some of my earliest memories. That is pretty much my childhood memories.
I have a big part in my head now that I am a year clean, and I have done a lot of work on myself, I
know now I lot of these delusions aren’t in my head because I always got told as a little girl and
growing up, it isn’t as bad as what it looks. Or I got told that never happened, a big part of my head
told me my memories never existed. So there is a part of this program, this rehab where you have
to do your life story and I was fearful of putting together my story. A fear of judgement, but also
judging myself, because a lot of people have an okay childhood. It’s like I don’t even recall any
good memories from my own childhood. I come from a family, my siblings are all a lot older than
me. They lived a life completely different to mine. They got the family holidays, they got the Mum
and Dad together, Dad left when I was three years old. I was left with my Mum.
Even though Dad was the dealer, the instability came from Mum too. Stability was never there. My
siblings had moved away, I was a dependant, I didn’t know what was right and what was
wrong. Childhood involved moving into a whole lot of different houses, to her gambling a lot and
losing a lot of money. When I came into here to this rehab I could label my Mum something, I
could label her as a Gambling Addict because I really didn’t know anything different. It took me a
long time to realise I was an addict too. What was normal to me was dysfunction to everybody else.
No stability, drugs, but that was the norm to me. My Mum holds a lot of shame and guilt towards
me. She doesn’t know the difference between unconditional love and total acceptance. It’s okay to
love me and tell me I have done something wrong. She holds so much guilt and shame. If I was to
‘pick up’ today, she would tell me that there is a plane ticket home. The cycle goes on.
I have had so many light bulb moments while being in here, you know? Still hold some resentment
towards my Mum for my upbringing, but I have always been the type of person to be able to see
that it is not them as a person, it is them as a behaviour. So I can see the cycle going around, you
know with my Mum being physically abused by her Dad, you know, and my Dad was really abusive
towards her so that was domestic violence ties in with my experiences. What ended up happening
was that my Mum ended up moving to Shepparton, and took me with her to go fruit picking. She
ended up meeting a heroin addict. I could never tie those two together. What was going on, I could

see the dysfunction but when Mum was with the heroin addict the physical abuse wasn’t
there. Thought the emotional unavailability was there, but all my Mum ever wanted was to feel
wanted and loved and she got that from him, the man that showed me all of these things I shouldn’t
of never have seen. But because she was so self-obsessed, it didn’t matter.
I got sexually molested at at the age of 4 for the first time. Followed by one guy then there was
another guy, these were my brother’s friends. One of them was supposed to be looking after me
while my Mum worked. He’d put me to bed and then he’d touch me. Age 6, there was a guy after
that I have very vivid memories of, and I am attending sexual assault counselling because of this. I
have suppressed it for so long, I just really don’t have much of a memory of it. Now I have a really
bad co-dependency behaviour, because I have been abused so much in my life, I keep the abusers
close to me. But I've been able to link that back with the feelings of being violated. It could be as
simple as someone putting a hand on my leg, me moving it off and then putting it back on and me
feeling rage. I question why? Why are they touching me? And that links to my past. I don't actually
recall the sexual abuse in depth because I was just so young but the feeling still come up to this day
for a simple as touching my knee without my consent.
We moved to Shepparton, lived in caravan parks and stuff. Mum's partner with a heroin addict but
he was a morphine addict before this time because he could only access morphine in the country
town we were in. Life for me was very lonely, I was never in a place long enough to be able to make
friends. I would always see what everybody had and that's all I wanted, but I would be so
fearful. Being in a small country town, everybody knows everything about everyone, so I got that
label of coming from that ‘junkie family’. It's like I wasn't allowed to be liked. Kids were always
filled with their parent’s words about me and my family. All I could do was just keep quiet and
exist. We were in Shepparton until I was about 12 so it was about 5 years.
We moved back to Melbourne because Mum had this idea of getting him off the morphine. My teen
hood sort of looked like because I was always by myself and very lonely, I came to the decision at
that age but if I was going to survive in this life I would have to do it on my own. You know there
was no one there to listen to me there was no-one there to believe me. I got told to keep my mouth
shut. This turned me into a very inwardly person. I lived in the dysfunction of it all I also became
very violent. If I saw something that I liked and they judged me then I would bash them. I started
using at the age of 13. I always had alcohol around me, but I never really liked it. I remember
though the way the using culture was like in my family, by the time I was 12 I already knew how to
resuscitate someone from an OD. The way using looked to me was, really it was just normal. I

would come home from school, I would walk into the lounge room and they would be a bong and
my brother and his friends would all be there. There would be a mix bowl there, so one day I just
decided to try it. I tried it weed but I didn't really like it. Then, that weekend I had an ecstasy pill
and that's really when I fell in love. It took me outside of myself. When you are on drugs that take
you up everything just seems so much better than it is. Walking to the mailbox can just be so much
more fun, to the colour of things can be that much brighter. Because I just had so much pain and
I've seen too much it just took me outside of that and I just felt free.
That was my school days I still only hold a year 7 pass to this day. I felt like at school I was always
the person who was put in the too hard basket. I was the one with the major attitude problem. I
was supposedly highly dysfunctional and what they would do is just remove me from that school I
was never asked what was going on for me at home, I was always just too hard. From 13 onwards it
was quite a struggle. After this, I still tried schools and I also tried an education school I just got
kicked out of all of them and they no longer would accept me. So pretty much put me on a black list
she's too violent, she's too hard for us. We were still moving around a lot, we would only stay in a
house for maybe a month or more because that's when you have to pay rent again. It was
constantly packing up, moving to the next house before the police came to this house. There was
never and unpack and a feeling of being at home. I just don't know how you would describe, I felt
displaced. I never felt safe, I never felt comfortable. Just always on the go and just never or no
questions asked. I went to about four different primary schools and five different high schools,
that's how much we moved around.
By the time I was 13, I was just adapted to this lifestyle. It was my sense of normal. Even though in
the back of my mind I knew it wasn't normal because I'd seen ‘real life’ living but I just thought that
would never come for me, that this was my life. My Dad was never there, my older sister had a very
different life. She lives with her husband and her children and she always seem to have stability
throughout this whole time of me getting thrown around everywhere. I didn't get help from her
either. It’s really hard for me to trust my family now. I am still connected with my family but we are
building those relationships now.
Life started looking up for me at around the age of 16. It was my first relationship and I fell pregnant
at 16. My Mum wanted me to have the baby but I said no. Even though I'd come from such a
screwed up background I had some sort of sense of maturity in me and I had to think of this
child. Even though I've lived such a party like teen hood, I was still like if I have his child at 16 and
then by the time I reach my 18th and my early adulthood and I've seen that happen. People who

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