Winning addiction battle turned life around

Mike was at a crossroads.

It was 2013. He had been battling an addiction to drugs for decades and he was faced with a decision that would define the rest of his life.

Mike could return to counselling and tackle his issues head-on or continue using illicit substances and sacrifice seeing his son ever again.

"I couldn't do it because I love him with all my heart," he said.

"I fought long and hard at those crossroads to which way I was going to go and I wanted to be the best dad I could be for my son, but at the time I was fighting with drug use.

"(I wanted to) be the best dad I could be like I had the best dad in the world."

Mike, who has not been identified, is a client of Palmerston, an organisation dedicated to helping people with their drug and alcohol problems.

Founded in 1980, Palmerston has grown to meet the growing needs of substance abusers in the Great Southern and the Perth metropolitan area.

It is now one of the largest not-for-profit community services in the alcohol and drug sector.

This week Mike is celebrating a year of being clean.

"Everyday is a joy, to be honest," he said.

"I wake up clear-headed, I'm really proud of the guy I see in the mirror, and that's an achievement in itself, whereas I wasn't before."

Mike's battle with drugs started when he was just 12, when he first experimented with marijuana.

"My best friend's uncle had written a letter on rollie papers and briefly the letter said basically 'You're going to come across the substance marijuana soon. I'd rather it came from family rather than anywhere else. Grab your best mate, roll it up and see how you go'," he said.

"And … my drug use progressed from there," he said.

"I smoked pot more frequently from that point onwards until, well, until just about a year and three months ago."

For Mike, cannabis led into other dangerous drugs.

"For me it went from marijuana to LSD and then from LSD to ecstasy and the speed and cocaine all sort of came round the same time," he said.

"At the time I think I was just out to be high, but … a lot of it would have been escapism and probably a lack of somewhat of an ability to entertain myself outside of drug use."

After a nine-and-a-half-month prison term when he was 21, Mike returned to prison at age 24.

"My father passed away from lung cancer shortly before that and I think a lot of what happened leading up to that imprisonment was me expressing my rage at how unfair I thought it was for my father to die," he said.

"So I hit the drugs pretty hard and the crime in order to pay for the drugs as well as hold down a job and I got caught in a high-speed chase.

"I went (to prison) at 24 and came out at 25.

"At that point I thought 'this is not cool'.

"From that point onwards, I would go through periods of abstinence of speed use."

At 26, Mike moved to Albany, where he says he had an eight-month period of abstinence, but returned to drugs when he entered the hospitality industry.

"I've travelled Australia and there isn't a town I've gone to that I haven't been able to score drugs," he said.

Mike, who describes himself as a functioning addict - someone who can be employed and pay rent while maintaining a drug addiction - said as the years went on and drugs became stronger the addiction began to take over his life.

"I think the meth got stronger then, the ice was more damaging so it took over more of my life - I lost jobs through prioritising my drug use," he said.

"Every penny I got I spent on drugs, so I had nothing, absolutely nothing apart from a couple of bits of furniture and a car."

Mike said his family never spoke about his issues.

"In the last decade it became more evident so it was something they tried to talk to me about and I would shut them out," he said.

"In 2008, Mum actually disowned me. It was too hard for her to watch her oldest son destroy himself.

"I was literally starting to dig my own grave at that point."

Palmerston counsellor Brad Mewburn has worked with Mike since he first linked into the Albany office.

Brad said the first step with any client was trust.

"You need to know their story and you need to listen. First thing you do is listen and listen well," he said. "Build trust - after the trust comes communication.

"You want to know how that person is feeling, how they're travelling in their life.

"What's worked for them in the past, what doesn't work for them."

During the past 10 years, Mike has returned time and again to the Palmerston Albany office for support and counselling.

"I'd come into the office and we'd talk about mindfulness, or cognitive behavioural therapy or meditation, or just counselling, or all of those things rolled into one, in order to help me manage my drug use or manage my own issues," he said. After years of what Brad describes as a "unique" working relationship, Mike hit his crossroads after a two-year period of abusing drugs - with his then partner - more than he had in the past decade.

"Getting kicked out by my girl-friend in a house we rented together in 2012 and being told that I would never see my son again was a point where I looked at myself and went 'this is just not working for you at all. Your mother's disowned you, she doesn't want anything to do with you, so you can't go there'," he said.

"So I ended up - I had all my stuff in my car - and I went to my best friend's place and I just broke down."

Mike returned to Palmerston, where he and Brad decided to try different methods.

"We went through those, and they didn't work and we got to the point where we were like 'you want to do this, (the farm) will work'," Brad said.

The farm is Palmerston Farm, the organisation's therapeutic community program.

The 10-acre semi-rural property 30 minutes south of Perth offers clients 14 weeks isolated from society to help them tackle their drug and alcohol problems.

In the last financial year, the program assisted 161 clients.

Mike said the three-month period away from his son was a hurdle.

"But as Brad said, the key word is trust," he said.

"I trust the man so much that when he speaks to me straight-up that we tried everything else, I listened to him.

"What they do at the farm is a tried and true method.

"A three-month block of your life is a drop in the ocean compared to what might be next."

Mike described the farm as a sanctuary.

"You're in an environment that's drug free and alcohol-free," he said.

"The people who come in and out of there are screened.

"It's a unique environment where there are 30 other people there that want to get well as well.

"I've never experienced anything like it.

"The fact that I'm still clean today is testament to itself and … the hard work I've put in and still put in on a daily basis … to stay clean."

Mike said tips he learnt at the farm helped him fight temptation.

"So what I learnt at the farm helps me get through those, things like consequential thinking and identifying unhelpful thought patterns," he said.

"Things that used to trigger me before into returning to drug use don't anymore.

"For me they are the most powerful skills I came away from the farm with."

Brad said the preparation in the lead-up to the farm program was important.

"I think for a lot of people it is because they've tried everything else," he said.

"Quite often people will stay four, five or six months until they're ready to leave."

Palmerston Great Southern manager Ben Headlam said people could go multiple times to the farm - a positive thing.

Brad said Palmerston was successful because of the flexibility it had with its clients.

"Every person is different," he said.

"The effect of the drug is different for everybody.

"It's really important for people that we are who we are, and who we work for are people, not the organisations or the Government, but the people.

"It's our first priority."

A year on from the farm, Mike said he had achieved each of the short, medium and long-term goals he had made as part of an exit plan at the end of the program.

Those goals include gaining employment, starting full-time care of his son, buying a house and settling a large tax bill.

"In under a year I've managed to achieve that," he said.

"What comes to mind is something Brad said: 'Mate, if only you could put as much energy into what you want to achieve in your life as you do into your drug use you'd be one of the most successful people I know', and it's true."

Mike and Brad have met each week since Mike returned from the farm, and he has just made the decision to reduce that to once a month.

Mike is using his experience to reach out to other clients.

"I took pleasure in being able to mentor another client here, which brings me back to one of the final steps," he said.

"This young fella was in the same place I was at when I was 20 and we sat down and had a bit of a chat - he was open to hearing my story."

Mike has also patched up his relationship with his mother.

"This week she held me in her arms and gave me a big hug and said to me 'you know what, son, I'm proud of you', and I hadn't heard that for a long time and it filled me with joy as well as choked me up," he said.

But for Mike, the farm and Palmerston have helped him enjoy the little things in life.

"Before I came here (for the interview) I ducked home for a shower and this is going to sound quite silly, but there was a massive black-and-white butterfly floating on my back patio," he said.

"I took a moment to watch that and it was awesome.

"He came and sat on a pipe next to me and then landed on my face and I stood that still and he gave me a little flutter on my face.

"It's moments like that - as corny as this will sound - that I really appreciate now."

I was literally starting to dig my own grave at that point. Mike