I always felt like I didn’t belong. My parents had me as teenagers and divorced when I was eight, which left me with deep feelings of abandonment and fear. We moved around a lot, so I was constantly changing schools and I struggled to maintain friendships. When they both eventually remarried, I often felt like a mistake.

How it Started

I remember the first time I tried weed. I was 14 in a small country town. I greened out and felt sick, but that didn’t stop me. At 15, while living abroad, I got drunk for the first time. At 17, I tried ecstasy and speed. The moment I felt that high, I was hooked. It felt like the cure to every wound I’d accumulated: my insecurity, pain, fear, and sense of never being enough.

From then, I drifted from my family. I lost countless jobs. Started several courses and dropped out of them all within the first year. The only constant in my life was substances. Weed, psychedelics, pills, alcohol. I was stuck on a roundabout to feel okay.

The first time I tried meth, I was told it was just smokable speed. When I started using daily, the psychosis began. First it showed up as paranoia in relationships, then beliefs that I was being surveilled. Looking back, I can see it was self-centred fear and a mind trapped in its own pain. My life spiralled into lock-ups, detoxes, psych wards, dangerous relationships, and homelessness. I never lived anywhere longer than 18 months.

At 39 — nearly two decades into daily use — I moved to northern Victoria to “get away from meth.” I isolated myself, became a baker, and numbed myself with weed and alcohol. Later, I moved back to Melbourne when a parent had a health scare. I was diagnosed with ADHD and started using pharmaceutical cannabis. I thought I was fine — as long as I wasn’t buying from a dealer. I drank multiple bottles of spirits a week and still didn’t think I had a problem.

When my prescriptions were cancelled because I was clearly misusing them, it took me less than six hours to relapse on meth. This time, my addiction accelerated. In psychosis, I used for 18 days straight, burning through my savings, barely eating or sleeping.

Then a friend took me to an NA meeting.

Finding Purpose in Recovery

I was still using, still psychotic, but I heard people tell stories just like mine. They weren’t using — and they were happy. I wanted that. I told myself I’d go home and sleep, but of course I used again. The next day, I went to another meeting and realised I needed more help. I needed rehab.

I got into rehab for 28 days. They took us to 12-step meetings every night. I connected with a psychologist and a trauma specialist. When I left, I joined a day program. Three weeks later, I was close to relapse. I could feel the ground cracking beneath me, so I went back to rehab for relapse prevention and got my 60-day tag.

After leaving, I got a sponsor. I did the suggested things, stayed connected to recovery through day program, therapy, and NA. At six months clean, I enrolled in TAFE to study Mental Health and Peer Support.

For the first time in my life, I was 18 months clean. I completed a course. I finally had proof that recovery was possible for me. I kept studying and am now in the middle of a Diploma of Community Services.

Today, I’m employed in the Alcohol and Other Drug field as a Lived Experience Peer Support Worker. I keep learning and growing. My recovery requires daily maintenance, so I stay connected to meetings, therapy, and community.

I never imagined I’d be able to study or be employable — especially because of the lived experience I carried. Then I learned about concepts like recovery capital and realised that everything I survived gives me valuable expertise. My story didn’t end where I once thought it would. Recovery gave me a life I didn’t know I was allowed to dream of.

If you feel like you need someone to talk to, or a new perspective might help you on your own journey, you can chat to one our online counsellors or check out our online community forum to connect with others going through similar struggles.