My son, Taylor, was a drug addict. One day he had been out with friends and when he came home he was a mess. He was convulsing uncontrollably, and he felt like his head was going to explode. He had taken a bad batch of ice.
He’d been an addict for three years and we just didn’t know what to do with him anymore.
We wanted to take him to the hospital but there’s really nothing they can do. We just needed to ride out the bad high. We’d become good at judging what was what, this was an effect of the drug, not an overdose, not an illness. It’s not something I ever imagined I’d become good at.
For the next ten days his health started to deteriorate. He was lethargic and had flu like symptoms. Boys being boys he refused to go to the doctor, and then shortly after his temperature spiked to over 39 degrees.
In the middle of the following night I heard an almighty crash and he’d passed out in the kitchen trying to a get a drink. It was time for the hospital.
The first indication he was using drugs came when he suddenly started losing a lot of weight. He was 21. He had a good job, a good car, hobbies, he was a good kid and a great part of our family.
His behaviour changed and he started to withdraw and he became aggressive. He suddenly started going out later at night. At 11pm he would need to pop out and “see a friend”.
We questioned him about it, and he admitted right from the beginning that he had been experimenting with ice. He swore he didn’t have an addictive personality and we didn’t need to worry about him.
Of course we worried but short of locking him in the house we didn’t know what to do except hope he would be ok. As it got worse I considered picking him up and running away to keep him safe but we couldn’t. He just needed to work it out for himself.
At first it was just once or twice a week, but then he started to disappear on benders. He’d vanish for a week and then come home all strung out.
Taylor was working as a belt slicer in the mines using heavy machinery that will slice your hand off if you don’t have your wits about you, and although he hid his addiction for two years eventually he couldn’t hide it any longer and he lost his job. His girlfriend left him, and he almost had his car repossessed until we took over the repayments for him.
I was terrified about Taylor driving. There were times we called the police to tell them his number plate and say he was on the road and possibly intoxicated because I was so scared he would be in an accident. That’s an agonising phone call for a parent to make.
Instead of this new low inspiring him to sort himself out, things just got worse and the last year of his addiction was hideous because my son became someone else.
Taylor and sister, Courtney, one week ago.
We live in Bunbury which is a small town, and we knew all of his friends. They’d been in the same year as each other since they were little. All 10 of them tried ice one night at an 18th birthday party and only two of them walked away without ever using it again. The other eight started using heavily.
We would plead with Taylor to stop, we would talk for hours with him and he appeared to be taking in it and then he’d disappear again and come home high. He never stole from us or hurt us but his aggression was incredible and getting through to him was so hard.
My relationship with my husband took a battering in this time. We fought with each other out of frustration because there was nowhere else to let our fear and anger out. We weren’t angry with each other, but there was nowhere else vent. We couldn’t focus it on Taylor because his aggression was one hundred fold.
After we found him on the kitchen floor that day we practically carried him to the car to get him to hospital. When we got there his blood pressure was incredibly low and they raced him straight to resuscitation. The doctor explained that Taylor was ill but they would do everything they could to save him. They put him in intensive care and he was diagnosed with strep pneumonia, his kidneys were failing and he had septicaemia.
Taylor hadn’t actually used ice for ten days since he had the bad batch, so it wasn’t so much that ice caused this but his body was so compromised by his addiction that it had no strength to fight. A healthy 24-year-old kid would have had antibiotics for pneumonia and gone on his way, but Taylor was half an hour from death.
I was sure I was going to lose my son, and it was a living nightmare. My brain was so focused on Taylor getting better that I had nothing left for anyone else. My husband was distraught but I couldn’t focus on him at all. I could only cope by focusing on my son.
It took a few weeks but his health got better. Now, seven weeks later, he’s battling the urge to use drugs. He’s trying to cut off all of his old friends, and left that life behind but it’s a small town and ice use is everywhere. Currently it feels like his recovery is two steps forward and one step back. It’s not an easy road, but we’re working on it together.
I started a Facebook group called Ice in Bunbury: A mother’s nightmare and the support has been incredible.
Breaking down the walls of shame in parenting and reaching out to other parents going through this has been invaluable. Hearing other people’s stories is both tragic and uplifting, and knowing we’re not alone gives us the strength to continue.
When Taylor is well he plans to help others who are going through this incredible fight with the evil ice.
As told to Danielle Colley.
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