The Truth About Addiction

I met Michelle in 1982. Michelle was one of the founding members of recovery in Australia. She got clean in February 1979, after the love of her life, heroin, gave up on her. She first started using heroin at 12 years of age. At 14 years old, she left school. By the age of 15, young, bold and fearless, Michelle left Australia heading to South East Asia, where the best heroin was, because she wante...

Logan had a perfect childhood. He excelled at baseball, though was really shy. When Logan first experienced his first drink, he felt like it took away the insecurity. Alcohol became the solution to his social life. As his alcoholism exasperated, Logan lost his baseball and college scholarships. Logan wrote his very first song during his stay at a treatment centre, and performed it for the first ti...

Richard has always made good use of his entrepreneurial skills since his younger years. Together with his brother, they built a chain of successful car care centres that were later sold on to become Ultratune. Following 17 years of active addiction, Richard has stayed substance free from November 1985 He has gone through AA, NA and Al-anon. ‘First 90 days I did 210 meetings. Next 2 years, I did 2...

Darcy experienced bullying throughout school and struggled with self image. The only kids that didn’t judge him were the ones that were up to no good, so he hung out with the wrong crowd. As a young man, Darcy was doing coke everyday and eventually was selling to keep his habits. During his time in Lotus Glen Correctional Centre for drugs and assault charges, Darcy started to focus on fitness. It...

Shane is a passionate motivational speaker and advocate for mental health, human rights and youth. Shane uses his lived experience to help people get through their life, with regular contributions to social innovation projects and volunteer in many causes and fundraising events. Shane also wrote a wide range of books, donating one hundred perfect of all proceeds to charity.  Shane shares his past...

Anthony, together with his partner Eve, founded Awakened Lifestyles to help people find their sense of purpose, their inner peace and balance in life, in order to lead a happy and successful life.  Anthony struggled through his teenage years with drugs addiction, and later on, obesity, while battling a constant feeling of ‘not enough’. Anthony has coached thousands of people in nutrition & min...

Karen Casey, a best-selling author. Her first book, ‘Each Day A New Beginning’ sold over 4 million copies and is dedicated to helping women suffering with addictions. At 13 years of age, Karen got a glass of whiskey and a coke, where she found the longing comfort that she couldn’t find within her family.  Karen talked about her first marriage with another alcoholic, the ‘spiritual intervention’ wh...

Danny Shannon, Founder of Encapsulator, created the business as a mean for individuals to record and track their dreams, their hope, their progress through life, to emphasise self awareness and observe their own transformations.  When Danny picked up heroin at 16 years of age, he never missed a day for the next 17 years. Danny is now 13 years clean. He has a great message about recovery, about not...

Daniel, Founder of Walkabout Warriors, has been proudly mentoring youth since 2017 using his own experience and passion in fitness and art therapy. Dan believes that art is emotional, and that emotions are not to be suppressed. He is teaching kids to deal with their emotions, understanding purpose to connect to themselves and their culture.  Dan came from a background of childhood trauma, sexual a...

Joe Williams is well known as an elite sportsman who played rugby league and was a professional boxer. He is even a better human being.  The Joe we talk to in this episode is a proud Wiradjuri/Wolgalu, First Nationals Aboriginal man, who supports the community in their mental wellbeing. Joe discusses the effect of substance abuse in his past and his journey to sobriety. Joe is 17 years sober.  Fol...

Georgina got clean in the room of Narcotics Anonymous. All her knowledge on recovery comes from the 12 steps program. Growing up, there were a lot of trauma, violence and alcohol around. When Georgina’s father passed away at the age of 9, her mother couldn’t cope. Georgina took over the household, became a little adult and ran the house. As soon as her mother got together with her stepfather, he s...

Dan has done more in the past 3 years of being clean, than the previous 22 years of using.  Dan was already addicted to heroin by the time he left high school. His drug addiction escalated tremendously after his brother’s passing. Dan overdosed 13 times, and each time, went straight to using from getting discharged in hospital. He didn’t care. He lost all hope. He just wanted to die.  After 7 atte...

42 years free from all drugs, Robert has stayed clean since 18 years of age. His drug use started since he was a baby, when his mum used to put a quarter of a Valium into his milk bottle so he could stay asleep for a long time. Both Dad and Grandad were alcoholics, he came from a family with a history of alcohol and drug abuse. He never learnt to have a proper relationship with anybody as a young...

Allan grew up in a rough neighbourhood in Melbourne. He hated school and used to have a drink before school to ‘take the edge off’. For him it started with the drinks, and the disease of addiction progressed over his teenage years to drugs: pot, speed, acid, mushroom, heroin, and finally prescription drugs.  Allan tells his story of getting clean, the multiple relapses, the second surrender (spiri...

Jye had been gambling hard for 16 years. Today, 34 years of age, he is 171 days clean from all substances and gambling, doing an amazing job as a father and a human being. Growing up in housing commission as a young child, Jye was surrounded by drugs and bad habits, so he was driven to work hard ‘to get out of there’. He was an angry kid at school, got through many fights as a teenager and a young...

Growing up watching his older brother Dylan play for bands in clubs, Jesse was envious and wanted to do music too, so he picked up the piano at 12 years of age, learnt to play and started off a tremendous passion in music. Jesse later on joined his brother Dylan forming their band Sailing In Space, producing out of this world music. Jesse talks about their band, the devotion and hardship they expe...

Claudia shares her story of a young child who ‘didn’t belong in the world’. Food and exercise were her first addiction before she found the substances. Claudia experienced sexual trauma at 8 years old, and by 12, had her first drink. From heavy drinking, constant bullies in high school, quick progression to party drugs, then prescription drugs, she finally put her hand up for help.  5 and a half m...

Hollie grew up in a ‘rough space’. She always felt like she was alone throughout her childhood and adult life. Hanging out with the wrong crowd, surviving toxic relationships, a lot of bad things happened when she was under the influence, as she was desperately trying to numb herself with drugs.  Hollie is now 16 months clean and striving to be a DV counsellor. 

Robyn has a total of 31 years clean time with multiple relapses. When I met her, she was a beautiful, talented young lady ,always with a guitar by her side.  By 18 years of age, Robyn was a ‘hard core’ heroin user. Her life was focused on providing for the habit. Today, Robyn is 6 years and 2 weeks clean. She released an album called ‘First’ on SoundCloud, and is working on another album. Listen t...

Growing up in Frankston Victoria in a ‘broken home’, Mark thought he was the poison that ruined the good things in life. He didn’t know how to talk about it as a kid, so started to look for things outside of himself to change the way he felt. Mark found it in crime. As Mark got older, he couldn’t stop looking for the feel-goods. It progressed with alcohol, drugs, violence, women etc…  Mark stayed...

Mikaela grew up in Melbourne in an area where ‘it was common to start drinking at an early age’.  As a 12 year old, Mikaela experienced uncontrollable drinking and mostly struggled in school. She was frustrated, angry, lost and unmanageable. She barely finished year 9. Mikaela first went to rehab at the age of 17 and was in and out of Narcotics Anonymous the last 10 years, though never worked the...

Donna started using as a young child, and for a very long time she thought it was normal from a social aspect. In her late teenage years, Donna started to notice that her using was getting heavy, she was always the last to leave, the one to always turn up with drugs and never wanted it to end.  There were many breakdowns in her relationships with others and she felt her self esteem was slipping aw...

Glen grew up in Melbourne in a ‘fairly’ normal family environment. He was introduced to drugs as early as 12 years old, then he started using heroin and was in and out of prison over the next 10 years.  In 2004, Glen ended up in rehab, but he was lost without support and a program to work on. Within a couple of months, he was back in the habit and back to jail. While he was in jail, Glen’s sister...

From her own words, Hales and her twin sister were ‘created during active addiction by dysfunctional addicts’. Hales’ mother and I met in rehab, where she was born and spent her first couple of early years of life. Hales knew about drugs and addiction more than any other kids at her age, growing up surrounded by recovering addicts, attended NA meetings on a regular basis and felt that as a little...

Dylan, from the band Sailing In Space at Sunshine Coast, Qld.  When Dylan’s father passed away at 9 years of age, he did not cope. He lived in made up fantasies to deal with reality and acted out on his addictive tendency. He struggled with self worth and lacked motivation to bring himself and his music out there.  On the day of doing our podcast, Dylan was 29 days clean. Thing were changing rapid...