Drugs cost money, a lot, every day, every week, every month.  And it’s more than you have, more than you can con from your family and friends. So you get it on credit, on the tick, because you need it, have to have it, and the dealers know that. Now you are a regular customer. Addiction sucks everything up and soon, anything of value you have owned has been hocked or sold. There is no end to the devil’s hunger.  It is unrelenting. The need for money is the same.  

The solution is easy her friend says. Think of it as one night stands with drug benefits. Her friend organises a meet with Billy, her pimp.

Like the needle, this is crossing all lines now. This is the time, the nanosecond that changes lives.  There’s no going back, no more pretence. Up until now you can kid yourself, pretend you are not a junkie, pretend it’s not prostitution. It’s a fling, a one night stand. 

Bette Midler is playing in her head:  “Oh, I love to be in love, don’t you love to be in love? Isn’t it just great to be in love? Do you say, Oh, honey, let me open up my loving arms and my loving legs? Dive right in, baby, the water is fine. Is that what you say, girls?”

Junkie prostitutes, those girls with the greasy hair and dilated pupils, are at The Cross, The Valley, St Kilda, on their knees or their back earning the price of the next hit.

That’s not her. But it was, had been since she took the first needle, first danced with the devil, all leading to this, moving from a user to a junkie; to stealing, selling drugs, trashing friends.

So she followed the well-travelled road, meeting Billy, a 28 year old local, with dark curly hair and piercing hazel eyes, in a city pub. He is nursing a bourbon and coke and looking pretty ordinary. No bling. No cool. Just local ordinary. The instructions are simple: the going rate is $100 for 30 mins and $150 for an hour and the money will be split 50/50. Be available by pager, you will be driven to the job, and he would then wait to take her to the next job.

Later, after the job interview at the local pub and after his de facto wife had left to drive one of the other girls to a job, Billy demanded his reward.  Billy has a new working girl, and working girls give freebies. She prayed he would finish before her jaw locked.  Welcome to your new world.

Billy dropped her off at her first job at a local motel that Friday night. She wore a little black number, wobbling in her strappy high heels.

“I can’t remember what his name was but he was okay looking – a bit of a cowboy in his mid to late 20s. I left 20 mins later with $100 in my hand. You’d think you would be repulsed – strange men climbing all over your body. But you don’t, you switch off, go away, think about the drugs, your body is there but your mind is somewhere, anywhere but in that room.  So that’s what you do, convince yourself it’s a one night stand with drug benefits.”

So that’s it, motel rooms, or if they are in a hurry, the back of the car. Inner suburban Brisbane gives you lots of choices. And you are popular, well educated, well dressed.

There’s not much dignity earning money on your back, but you can’t smoke or inject dignity; dignity will not feed the hunger, soothe the agitation,  force the depression, the overwhelming hopelessness, into the light. Dignity is not for addicts.

That’s the thing you see. Early in the addiction cycle you tend to live in the future, and in the middle and late in the cycle you dwell more and more in the past, and it’s usually an unhappy, bitterly regretted past.

The downward spiral was starting, the ravages of meth becoming more obvious. Weight drops off; the skin goes pasty. The life of an addict – even a functioning addict – follows a simple pattern.

Mornings are spent scheming; the anticipation of a hit; the realisation that more money than you have is needed to get through the day. There is the endless waiting for acquaintances whose own despair and desperation remind you of the road you are travelling. There are panicked rushes to inject, and the fear of having nothing. Paranoia and anger also start to dominate. Your whole focus is on ‘the chase’. You just chase drugs the whole day.

Sometimes you have to go without – drug drought or no money, so you substitute other drugs –  weed, whatever but preferably something you can shoot cause you’re addicted to the needle and the whole ritual as well. You’re agitated, can’t accept the thought of not having a hit. You’re obsessed with getting it.

You have no concept of time – your one aim is to get meth, and that’s it. Violence is easy. Boundaries, restraint, have disappeared. A $100 drug debt warrants a bashing.  She watched as her friend takes a flogging,  he cries when they hit, kick him, – you stand by, watching as bone bashes skin, you watch as he tries to protect himself, arms up, trying to ward of the blows. BASH, BASH, BASH; until he’s lying on the ground – stunned, bloodied. “Get the fuck out of here,” you hear before realising the voice is yours.

“Suddenly I was tired, tired of chasing drugs, chasing dealers, I was tired of feeling and looking like shit. Every. Single. Day.”

 An accidental confession sparked a relationship implosion. It was a confession to the needle, to the prostitution; to the lies, deceptions, rip-offs. It all came undone, unravelling at a furious speed. The train crash, so long in coming, was here, a wreckage of human flaws and bad decisions. Now there is confusion, anger, pain, a world of hurt, more than enough to go round. Who knows why she took the needle with such enthusiasm. But now it’s finished, the train smash is here,

You go into rehab, and like all addicts facing rehab time, you go on a three-week bender in preparation.  It was six weeks in rehab. You are stripped and sat in a bath – to flush out any smuggled drugs while staff watched. Humiliation heaped on humiliation.    

“I felt very, very lost and alone – really alone. I wasn’t overly agitated as I had kind of resigned myself to the fact that I was in rehab and I was getting off drugs. But I was angry at the whole situation and how I let it all get so out of hand that I had to end up here. There’s a saying which describes drug addiction as the whole train wreck, car crash experience.

“It’s like taking a racing car for a joy ride and reaching maximum speed. By the time you realise you have no brakes, you’re going pretty fucking fast…” Addicts always find out too late that they’re out of control.

“I couldn’t sleep the first night, and I was sweaty and jittery. I guess I just felt a whole mix of emotions – anger, fear, resentment, emptiness, defeat. I was also emotionally exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep – my mind was just racing, and my body was twitching – I was in a lather of sweat, but I was cold at the same time.

Having to stand up and say the words “My name is Mary or Sue or Joan, and I’m an addict” is both confronting and liberating at. It’s confronting in that you finally have to admit the truth; you can’t live in denial or make excuses for yourself anymore, but it’s also liberating in that you don’t have to keep fighting it anymore. You don’t have to pretend everything is okay anymore. “ 

 There were other relapses, struggles, regrets and anger – before finally staying clean.

“I thought of drugs a lot, just about every moment of every day. I dreamt about them. I’d often dream that I was preparing a shot and I would put the needle in my vein and then wake up. 

But she has moved on, stayed clean, is resigned to being in recovery for the rest of her life.

 There will always be regret and shame, no matter how many years pass. That’s the thing about addiction whether it be drugs or alcohol or gambling is that you are in recovery for the rest of your life.

As I said, most people lead good lives, make the right choices, recognise the difference between right and wrong. Until they don’t,  a decision in a nanosecond changes lives leads them to dance with the devil.  You don’t need to look at the underbelly to see human flaws. Most are hiding in plain sight.