This is my story.
(Some days are diamonds, some days are stones) . . At present, my story is 50 years long. It could obviously take quite a lot of room to tell it all, so I will divide it up into a few fairly concise sections! . Childhood. . I was born into a family of country people, the youngest child of a youngest child. My extended family were all either much older than my parents or had already died. When I was six months old my mother went into hospital with a mystery illness and died as a result when I was eighteen months old. She was later found to have had a rare kidney disease.
My father was unable to cope with her death and began drinking very heavily. This was no great surprise as he came from a family of heavy drinkers and had been known to drink too much for years before anyway.Dad walked off our farm and my two brothers and sister and I were split up between various relatives.
When I was nearly four, my father got my sister, youngest brother and myself back in a new town with a housekeeper to look after us. My oldest brother stayed with our cousin because the housekeeper wouldn't take him as well.By this time I was unable to talk, was very undersized, self-mutilated by biting myself constantly and wet the bed nightly.Dad was drinking alcoholicly so life was not very pleasant. He was often violent with the housekeeper, Freda, who had begun a de-facto relationship with him. She was a very strange character, very suspicious of everyone, and believed that us kids were being bad all the time. I came good under her care though, I was not ready to start school until age six but learned quickly once I got there. I loved reading.
Dad stopped drinking when I was seven. He moved us all to a new town where I went to a tiny country school. I was scared of the other kids all the time and was singled out and teased often. Freda dressed me in very old fashioned clothes which didn't help at all. She often accused my brother of 'interfering' with me, although neither of us knew what she meant. She was a strict disciplinarian and I was too frightened to do the wrong thing around her. She left when I was eleven, leaving me, dad, and my brother to look after ourselves. (My sister had moved out of home when I was six.) I felt like I was free. . Teenage . I went to high school in the large town nearby, escaping into the anonymity of a large school. I didn't get teased as much, partly due to the anonymity, partly due to looking more like I fit in without Freda's archaic influence. I really wanted to be accepted by the other kids and began wearing really short skirts and make-up, smoking and giving teachers cheek. This worked some of the time, but I spent a lot of time hanging around with the 'misfits'.
I wagged school fairly often and happily had my first drink at fourteen.At about the same time, my brother began molesting me, I can't remember if the drink came before or after because I can't remember the first time he molested me and see no reason to try. I feel that the seed that Freda had sown started growing in his mind then, At fifteen I became pregnant. I had always been too scared to tell my dad and thought that I would get into trouble if I told him what had been happening.He was really emotionally unavailable and, although I loved him dearly, I was unable to get close to him and could not confide in him. He was shattered when he found out I was pregnant. I refused to tell him who the father was and ran away from home.I found out later that my oldest brother Gary was worried sick about me and wanted me to move in with him and his wife and kids, but I didn't have any contact with him so I didn't know.
I went to Melbourne and had the baby terminated. I had met a group of bikies just after leaving home. I had spent a fair bit of time with them and went out with two of them. After a few months I came to the notice of another group of bikies who were a lot tougher than my friends. These people preyed on women as a matter of course. I was gang raped by about twenty of them. Within three months I was doing something I had vowed to myself that I would not do and was using marijuana, then hash, LSD, mushrooms and pills in the next year.
At sixteen I started using heroin. I felt that it gave me power. I did armed robberies to get drugs and at eighteen was in gaol for this. By nineteen, I had been let out on an appeal and spent a lot of time in detox wards and rehabilitation centres. I didn't really want to stop though. I simply wanted to stop being in trouble. I'd been in two lengthy lesbian relationships, but things were very messy with the last one, and I didn't want to go back to jail and needed to stop doing crime. I made a decision to have men buy drugs for me, and lived with a number of dealers, I didn't intend it at the time, but this began a period of 17 years of heterosexuality. I went interstate to the Northern Territory, and met the man who was to become my husband. I became pregnant accidentally and so was faced with some pretty big decisions. . Early Adulthood . I had the good sense to believe that I could not be an active heroin addict and a mother at the same time. I decided to keep my baby, rather than having another termination, and to stop using heroin. My boyfriend and I had actually broken up due to his violence, but he wanted us to get back together and have the baby so I went back with himm on thre understanding that we'd both stop using heroin. I stopped using without any real problem. I was rather addicted to the idea of having a baby! Lindsay was born just before my twenty-first birthday. I was a good mum for a couple of years, although I tended to drink heavily on occasion. My husband wasn't violent very often and we had our daughter Alia when I was twenty three.
We both began drinking heavily a lot of the time in the next year, it became obvious that he was an alcoholic. It was probably obvious that I was as well, but I wasn't able to see it.He became very violent again, I began to be violent in retaliation, and we broke up. A week later he bashed me with an iron bar and went to gaol. My injuries put me in hospital for three days but could have been much worse. I had a lot of soft tissue damage but nothing broken, I had home care for two months so that I could be at home with the children. My husband got out of gaol and we got back together for a month or so then split up again because I was scared of him. A year later we got back together again for six months, which ended up with more violence. When we broke up this time, I didn't go back. (Wonder of wonders, hey?)
I drank very heavily through this period. I still used heroin occasionally and smoked grass as often as possible. I had decided that all of the problems in the marriage had been 'his fault' and was unable to see any wrongdoing on my own part, although I had played around and was certainly no angel.
I had a lot of boyfriends in the next couple of years, most of them violent men, all of them heavily into drugs or booze. I kept on using grass and pills, but I drank mostly, and finally saw for myself that I was an alcoholic. My children were put into temporary foster-care a number of times to 'give me a break' and I became unable to look after them. Luckily, at the worst times I lived with a girl who had a young baby who made sure that I did the basics. I had a boyfriend for a year or so. He was ugly, crippled in one leg, fat, not very clever, had terrible dress sense and drank just like me. He used to tell me that no-one else would have me, and he was probably right!
At the end of this time I lived with four other adults. We all drank huge amounts and fought with each other a lot.I blacked out every night and had become very violent. I went into the D.T.s every morning if I didn't have a drink. My most constant thought I can remember then is, "Is this all there is?" I had thought when I was a little girl that I would grow up into some-one special, and I couldn't believe that that was all there was to life.I often went to bed hoping that I would not wake up, not thinking of suicide, just simply wanting to die.
This could not go on and it didn't. I put myself into hospital to detox. I had broken up with the boyfriend and didn't have a home for more than the next week because I'd moved in to a house where the lease was just running out. So I went to a rehabilitation centre. My children were allowed to live there with me and we were there for six months. I discovered A.A. and N.A. . From then until now. . As I had done with heroin, I didn't really want to stop drinking, I just wanted to get out of trouble. However, as it tends to do, A.A spoiled my drinking. I dabbled with marijuana, tried hard to drink socially and had an occasional binge. I kept going to meetings but I didn't actually do any of the things it was suggested I do very well. A year into my 'recovery' I met my next long-term partner. He was also in the program but didn't seriously ever look like succeeding at stopping drinking or drugging. He wanted to, but was never able to get it together for long. We stayed together for almost seven years. He was a brilliant chef and had worked in many of Australia's major resorts, but was unable to work any more due to his alcoholism. He was a brilliant musician, could do anything physical he turned his hand to, adored animals and was highly intelligent. When he was sober, he was a charming, loving man who did his best to father my children.
In that time I allowed myself to drink when he did, I was able to say it was 'his fault' that way, to myself at least, and often to everyone else. We were very violent with each other when we drank, but I was so convinced that I could not live without him that I would never allow him to leave. We were on and off every couple of months, I'd swear it was the end then have him back again a couple of days later. This only created a lot of emotional and physical harm to both of us. We moved interstate then back again, lived in lots of different houses and dragged the poor kids in and out of lots of different schools. The good was very very good, but the bad times were truly horrid!
After I had been with him for over four and a half years, five and a half years after attempting to get sober the first time, the penny dropped and I have not had a drink or a drug since. My recovery began.
I went to a lot of CoDependants Anonymous meetings, Adult Children of Alcoholics, Al-Anon and lots of A.A. and N.A. I learned a lot, but I was still hanging on grimly to our relationship and my partner was still using most of the time, getting sicker and sicker, as we do.
I got to a point where he picked up a drink...again, and I could see no way out. I felt that I couldn't cope with him drinking and drugging any more but I could not break up with him. So I tried to suicide. I woke up in intensive care in hospital the next day, angry to be alive but determined to change my life if my Higher Power had seen fit to save me. I broke up with him for the last time a month later when he picked up his next drink. The children were amazed! (They had begged me to leave him for years.)
After breaking up with him, I discovered what you have probably realised - that I had been a very emotionally screwed up girl and that I had an awful lot of recovering to do. So, since then I have done my fourth step, which badly needed doing, then all of the others. I practice the last four steps on a daily basis. (They're on my"Things I've Learned" page if you don't know what they are.) I went to a psychologist, then a sexual assault counsellor, and spent a lot of time with my A.A. sponsor, who is also a drug and alcohol counsellor.
I went back to school and finished my high school education. I did part of a lab. tecnicians course and worked in a tissue culture lab for a while. I found I didn't like the work much and when I was retrenched didn't look for work in that field again. Instead, I got a job cooking and doing a bit of counselling at Freeman House, the rehabilitation centre I had gone to years before, and had always stayed in touch with. At the same time I got a job cooking in a pub. I'm the only person I know that's worked in a pub and a rehab at the same time! I knew that I wouldn't be cooking forever, but it was a good thing to do while I decided what to do with myself.
I established close ties with my family for the first time and became a person they liked to ring up and talk to. I got to be close to my dad, and found out that we had an awful lot in common. I became what I had always wanted to be, a good mother to my children, they are now my closest friends. Thanks to my breaking the cycle of what I was doing, and being able to give them a lot of good, solid mothering, they grew up to be delightfully "normal" adults. I have three gorgeous grandchildren, who've never seen me drunk or stoned, and wouldn't dream of me being anything other than their loving granny.
Ten years ago, we found out that my dad had lung cancer, which was associated with him working with asbestos thirty years before. Just before he died (holding my hand) I moved back to Victoria to buy his house from his estate and stayed there to do a double degree in Bachelor of Arts / Bachelor Social Welfare at Monash university. I finished that seven years ago and moved back to Sydney, where I work in drug and alcohol, keeping people out of jail, which is a very rewarding thing to do!
I was sixteen years clean and sober on October the 22nd. I go to N.A. meetings still, because they keep me sane. I may not need to go to the meetings any more, but I choose to because the other people there are sane as well! I believe that I owe it to the people who helped me to pass the message on to newcomers, and I also don't need to put myself at risk of EVER forgetting where I come from... My partner died of this disease four years ago. Despite all the problems, I miss him still - there was a beautiful man inside all that sickness. If I'm ever tempted to forget, it's not hard to remember that I was also once engaged to Tim, went out with John, Billy, George and Neville, and they all died of addiction.
I survived, and I am HAPPY. Life is a precious gift that is just too good these days to throw away.
That's about it for now, congratulations if you've read through all of this, you have great staying power! This page has evolved and grown since it's inception, so is already different for you if you read it last year some time. Life's like that. This section just keeps getting lonnnngggerrrr, I might have to work out a way to divide it up soon...
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