A chapter of life: My family - living through drug use
An inspirational journey
Growing up in a small town was awesome, you go walking and exploring in the paddocks, far away from people, parents do’s and don’ts, you feel adventurous, alone, the independence makes you feel strong, like you are making your own way in the world; looking back through the long grass in the paddock it is just your narrow track of flattened grass.
I remember lots of crazy adventures with my brothers and sisters’; riding motorbikes into town, to buy dope, driving paddock bombs with no doors along the bush highway, horse riding, daring each other to jump over snakes, jumping off bridges into rivers bellow, climbing trees, getting drunk and going rowing.
Probably all things you shouldn’t do when your 13 – 16. I don’t regret any of it. Definitely the most experimental years of my life and they make you. There is a lot of pressure when you are young to find out who you are, what group you belong to. More and more drugs and alcohol are used to create identity, it’s part of what you do to fit in, be cool, have fun, make adventure for yourself and escape the boredom. Looking back at growing up my friends were my world and being excepted by them was the most important thing. Unfortunately drugs and alcohol were how we all related to each other. Stopping taking drugs and alcohol when I was seventeen saved my life, I’m sure of it. If I hadn’t been so sure that I would kill myself from the anxiety created by paranoia that followed me around I would have kept using.
There’s no fun, freedom or future when drugs get under your skin. All you can think about is now, the drugs now. But the price for being clean was my friends, my reputation - the price was loneliness. I found loneliness just as scary and isolating as addiction.
But looking back I remember a lot of sadness in the fun of it all, I was alone a lot, my parents weren’t home, and to be honest I am not really sure where they were? Often my Mum was at AA meetings (although now I know that they only run for an hour or so, not days) and my dad was “at work”. I remember when they were around they were sad a lot. They were sad a lot. They finally broke up. We often didn’t have parents or the things they provide, like;
Food – Milo and white bread sandwiches, loose there novelty, especially when they sit in your stomach for days on end
Transport – we would tell the friends of parents that our Mum was picking us up from out the front, she wasn’t we walked to the highway and hitched. I always missed the school bus, I couldn’t stand the judgemental eyes of the bus driver or the other kids, especially when you are stoned out of your brain.
Information - about what is right and wrong; about your school work; about your body, relationships, the world - how, and who, to ask for help? What do you do if you can’t get help?
Guidance - who am I? Where did I come from? (Not in the biological sense, but your history, how do you belong in the world, who are you connected to? Why/to whom are you important? )
Discipline – keeps you out of trouble, keeps you safe, makes you feel like somebody cares about you, makes you feel like other people see that someone cares about you Security – A place to feel like you can be yourself, like you are safe, not afraid, people love you and care about you
Interest and acknowledgment – Some-one to ask you questions about yourself; and pay attention to your strengths, weaknesses, achievements, goals and disappointments. Someone to be interested in you; encourage you to be interested in yourself and what you have to offer to the world; what the world can offer you.
Money – We stole money (mainly for drugs and alcohol) off my parents or friends parents whenever we got the chance, or from the supermarket and clothing stores. No-one brought food, clothes, paper and books for school. No-one paid for swimming lessons or dance classes, or school camps. I was so relieved when they made the school uniform compulsory, because I was always so embarrassed that I didn’t have any nice clothes.
Eventually it got back to my parents that I hadn’t been at school for as year and a half and I would have to repeat at least three subjects before I could do my VCE. My Mum couldn’t deal with me by that stage I was bigger, angry, aggressive, moody and volatile - of course I was. I was embarrassed, scared, drug affected and felt extremely alone and like nobody cared.
My Mum locked me and my stuff out.
Around the same time my best friends’ brother (my older sister’s ex- boyfriend) who I had grown up with died of a heroin overdose. He was buried in the cemetery near my house. A friend from school drowned in the river, while he was drunk, swimming with his girlfriend, she couldn’t save him. Death and sadness changes you, it changed my friend, who was like a sister to me. Her face became lined with sadness she couldn’t laugh or joke anymore, we couldn’t talk anymore. She finished school and went to study overseas.
I went to live with my Dad in another town – it changed my life, I hated every minute of it but I finally felt like someone cared enough about me to stop me from destroying myself.
My Dad was doing a 12 step program at the time and I think it gave him some insight into ways of communicating with me.
I missed my friends but I realised that without drugs and alcohol to share we didn’t have much else.
I started to learn something in school; I started to learn to write. I started to learn words to ask for help, my Dad encouraged me he looked at my work and tried to help me.
I was a loner when I went back to my home town to finish school; I was so embarrassed that everyone knew I was a year older than everyone else. I went to live with my Mum again, and it lasted a week before I was locked out with my stuff again. I missed my brothers and sisters and I could see them lost and scared and to hide their fear they were wreck less with themselves, with drugs and alcohol, and they were so attached to each another.
I sat and read books in the school yard. Mostly the books were a prop to avoid eye contact and conversation with other people; I didn’t know how to talk to them. I was so embarrassed.
I finished school. I cried. I was mystified for ages, ‘how could I have done that’? I felt embarrassed that I had had too much help that I had cheated by being a year older.
My Dad helped me enrol in university; I had no idea of what I wanted to do. But my Dad told me, and I knew it was true, that it was the only way out of that town, that life.
I moved to the city to study. I was alone and scared and didn’t have much of a clue about how to get anywhere or what to do when you get there. But there were lots of other people who felt the same. I made friends with people who couldn’t judge me on the past because they didn’t know about it.
A new chapter of life had begun.
You don’t have to follow a life of drugs, even if your parents did and your brother did and your sister did and so many of your friends did. You don’t have too.
But you do need some options. A solid people solid; who really cares about you. Ask yourself, if we don’t have drugs or alcohol and we are not on a mission to get it; could we still hang out? If you can’t than chances are they are not worth it.
