Kelli Pfeiffer didn’t know that her son Blake was using drugs until he was expelled from his private school in Rockhampton, Queensland.
‘At first I thought: “He’s just experimenting like all young people do”,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
The tragic reality was that by then, Blake had been caught up in the drug world for more than two years.
Pfeiffer, a farmer and mother of two, says that Blake was first introduced to marijuana by fellow students. His drug use then escalated to methamphetamine, also known as ice.
She also claims that many young students at the school and elsewhere have been groomed into dealing drugs after developing addictions they couldn’t pay for.
After his expulsion from school Blake left his family home and only visited periodically. His family were desperate to rescue him from his addiction, but long wait periods for rehab clinics meant that they kept missing the small windows of opportunity they had.
“The waiting periods to get into them are weeks, to months, to years. So when the drug addict wants to make that decision to get help, there’s not really any way in that small window of opportunity,” she explains.
Pfeiffer also said it was close to impossible to find a rehabilitation centre for addicts between the age of 15 and 18.
Pfeiffer was eventually put in touch with a NSW-based social worker who quickly organised for Blake to have interviews at rehabilitation centres interstate.
But then the family began receiving threats.
“Dealers from my son’s drug world made threats against my life and my family and I went to the police and they said, ‘Get your son out of Rockhampton now, because they are serious about the threats’.
“They put surveillance on the house and tapped the phones, and I simply came home and put my son in the car and said ‘we’ve got to go’. We drove for 21 days.”
Pfeiffer drove Blake all the way to Melbourne to waste time until their interview at rehabilitation clinics in central-western NSW.
During this time Blake’s behaviour was erratic and aggressive while he came down off ice.
Blake was finally admitted into rehab two days before his 18th birthday and five-years after he was first introduced to drugs.
It took just 12 weeks at the Mission Australia Triple Care Farm for 16 to 24-year-olds in Knights Hill for Blake to be rehabilitated.
“Five years of hell and it was all fixed in 12 weeks. I couldn’t believe it myself,’ said Pfeiffer.
“He is a completely changed person.”
Of course, often worries that Blake (now 19) will one day return to drugs: “But he told me: ‘You have to stop worrying. I don’t ever want to live like that again’.”
Pfeiffer said she hopes the stigma attached to addiction would be dropped so those suffering “feel brave enough to come forward”.
“This can happen to anyone. And it shouldn’t matter how much money you have or where you come from, you should be able to recover and have access to resources that can help you recover,” she said.
“My son went from needing welfare, needing help in hospital, police and ambulance to in 12 weeks giving up that addiction. Now he has a job and pays taxes and is a contributing member in his community.”
Lifeline: 13 11 14
Family Drug Support: 1300 368 186.
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