My thirst for alcohol developed in my early teens when I discovered that it altered how I felt. At the age of 15, I also developed a smoking habit and for the next few decades I drank and smoked myself silly. It never occurred to me that I was using alcohol and cannabis as medication. […]

Read More… from Gill, Just an ordinary Suburban Mum

I started using substances and drinking just before I hit 18. I didn’t know I had an addiction problem, I thought I was just a rebel teenager. I couldn’t get out of the vicious cycle, a tangle, stuck, trapped, hell of a nightmare – the drink and drugs took over my life. It took over […]

Read More… from Trapped in a Nightmare

22-23 years of age, 6 years of playing semi-professional football, to stopping all of a sudden with a loss of love for the sport. After excessively binge drinking every weekend for 6 years at every event, function and game, alcohol slowly found its way into my everyday life. It was used as a switch-off device […]

Read More… from From Lit to Lightbulb

I wish the stigma about alcoholism could be dead and buried, and alcoholism understood and accepted for the illness that it is. I’m a recovered alcoholic, sober since my first meeting in 1994. I wish that every AOD worker would attend at least one meeting, and/or read the basic text of the program, to educate […]

Read More… from My Wish

Where to begin… Well from a young age I was living in a house with a lot of arguments. I learnt very early on how to be a victim, how to make others feel guilty and best of all, how to seek validation. When I found alcohol, it was the final piece. At 19 I […]

Read More… from Free from Prison

There was a time when my life felt stable – anchored by a relationship and a clear sense of direction. But when that relationship ended, my world collapsed. The emotional devastation was overwhelming, and I was left questioning my identity and purpose. In my grief, I turned to alcohol and drugs for solace. What started […]

Read More… from From Rock Bottom to Recovery: A Journey of Transformation

When I bonged out of uni at the age of 21, a job at a ski resort sounded like a lot of fun! I didn’t know at the time, that this would be my first geographical. It would also be the first of eight ski resort employment swings. It would also be the first of […]

Read More… from I Found My Purpose… It Wasn’t Lost

My addiction started when I was 5….. With books!! My earliest memories of me in childhood are majority of me with my head buried in books. I didn’t know it then, but I used books as a way to escape.  I escaped the chaotic, noisy and unstable childhood I had. I wanted to numb the […]

Read More… from Beauty in the Dark

Five years ago, my father died, and three years ago I was living in my car. While one traumatic experience can be enough for someone with limited support systems to spiral downwards, I have had the bonus of a lifetime of intergenerational exposure to alcohol and other drugs used as a self-medication tool, in a […]

Read More… from Grace if I Stumble

I’m 57 years’ old and have had an intrenched drug history for most of my life. Unfortunately, I had to commit crime to fund my drug habit. Due to the stigma I experienced when I was younger about drug user’s etc, I didn’t come forward and admit I had a drug problem. I self-medicated and […]

Read More… from The Revolving Door