Rehab the hard road forward

The horrors of “speed-induced psychosis” vanish from the eyes of 18-year-old Kate for a beautiful moment or two as she considers a life free of drugs with her seven-month-old daughter.

“I’m going to go and live back at home with my mum for a while and save up some money so I can get my own place for me and my daughter, hopefully by the beach,” said Kate (not her real name).

“I don’t want her growing up remembering me never there and always on drugs.”

But there is also caution in her voice built on the reality too many young people face.

Kate, who has applied to TAFE and is optimistic of pursuing a career as a paralegal, is one of five recovering addicts to open up about their almost seamless transition from early-life hopes and dreams to the devastation of drug addiction.

The five live together completing a three-month program at the Mission Australia Drug and Alcohol Youth Centre’s rehabilitation house in Carlisle.

The long road back from addiction

It is the matter-of-fact message from one teenager there that gives the most chilling insight into the world of drugs on WA streets for parents.

“It is so easy to get them, it’s scary,” the teenager says.

“There are amphetamines in every suburb and they don’t care who they sell them to. There are houses where you just walk up to the front door and stand there.

“Some just have a little cut in the fly-screen. You hand over the money and bang, see you later.”

As we settle into Mission Australia’s DAYS detox facility in East Perth to discuss the modern scourge on Perth streets, a knowing bond and familiarity among the residents is palpable.

“We are family so we can go in the family room,” one says.

Kate started smoking drugs aged 14 but quickly progressed to injecting. In 2013 she was in hospital and being treated for her speed-induced psychosis.

But she ignored the stark warning and her drug-use became more substantial.

She was once so high she ran from Malaga into the next suburb, convinced every person she saw was trying to kill her — even the ambulance officers who finally helped her.

Tom, 16, started using dope to feel cool like his older peers when he was 10 and within two years was smoking ice.

Crime and stealing money from his parents soon became his conduit to getting drugs to feed his burgeoning habit.

“It put me in a bad state of mind and I felt like I kind of lost my head,” he said. “I got locked up for a bit ... if I didn’t get locked up, I don’t think I would have stopped.”

Tom was a bricklayer and roof tiler and, dangerously, was regularly high working in a WA industry he says is rife with drugs.

At 14, he got caught using by his best friend, who broke his nose as punishment.

He has now been clean more than three months and was feeling “fresh”. He had added 10kg to his still light frame and hopes to soon start a heavy vehicle mechanic apprenticeship.

Rodney, 16, was a promising footballer in a WAFL junior development squad before his drug use grew rampant and robbed him of fitness and commitment.

It is his second time in the residential program. Two weeks before finishing his previous course, he received a lump sum Centrelink payment and left.

“I just went out and bought heaps of drugs ... amphetamines,” he said, adding he later went on a car-stealing and burglary spree.

He evaded police for six months before his arrest in December. A failed urine test landed him in Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre in March.

He was released last week, having put 20kg back on to his dwindling body and hopes to be an apprentice boilermaker.

“I just want to sort my life out,” he said. “I’ve got a six-year-old sister and if I spend the rest of my life in jail, she’ll grow up with no brother. I want to be there for her.”

Mark is 17 and last week he celebrated his son’s first birthday and a new job after starting to smoke drugs at age 11.

“I had, pretty much, a s..t upbringing,” he said, explaining how his life of crime and the drug court led him to DAYS.

“I took drugs, methamphetamines, and it just got worse and worse and became a lifestyle … just drugs, drugs, drugs.”

Mark was sent away from DAYS last year but has returned and sees it as his saviour.

Hannah, 21, burst into the room with a compelling story of sadness and optimism.

She started abusing alcohol at 14, following her alcoholic grandfather, and used it as an escape from domestic abuse. It led her to prescription pills.

Treated often for mental health issues, she would doctor shop for drugs and use other people’s prescriptions, though it was a constant battle.

“It’s not easy at all and I’ve had a pretty rough week this week, just the emotional stress realising the stuff you’ve done in the past and all the things you’ve got to go through to get yourself back in order,” Hannah said.

“I hate myself a lot for what I’ve done and you still want to use most of the time. I don’t actually know who I am because I use so much.

“I think I’m winning. You hope every day that you win the fight that day and stay in the program.”

All five say DAYS, which they see as a rare support network in their lives and something of an emotional safety net if they have a relapse, has given them a hope they had thought lost.

But they admit it takes a gruelling commitment to see the light.

They are all also sceptical about Health Minister Helen Morton talking about forcing meth addicts into three months of treatment and rehabilitation, saying to be told to get better was counterproductive.

“If I was locked in that program against my will, I’d be out in the first three seconds and wouldn’t even consider the program,” Hannah said. “Getting held against your will is the worst thing possible.”

DAYS co-ordinator Jacob Davis said those in the program had access to doctors, psychologists, nurses, case managers, family counsellors, a youth outreach worker, a detention counsellor and diversion programs.

He said the people DAYS helped now were more violent, angry and volatile and had more deep-rooted issues. Meth, synthetic cannabis and alcohol were the biggest problems.

As well as the crimes, young female addicts had become known as “packet girls” because they paid for drugs with sex.