Adam, left, is a former FIFO mining construction worker from Perth. Photo / ABC
Adam, left, is a former FIFO mining construction worker from Perth. Photo / ABC
Warning: Graphic content may offend some readers.
Adam, a former FIFO construction worker from Perth, has opened up about his experiences on meth.
"You go above and beyond, you do a few things you probably wouldn't do. Yeah, I'm probably not too proud of some of the nights I've spent with a couple of sheilas," he admits.
It's one of a series of taboo questions that will be posed to recovering ice addicts on tonight's episode of You Can't Ask That on the ABC.
"(Women would) be knocking on my door any time of day or night," says Taz, who used to work as an interstate truck driver from Sydney.
The program aims to break down social stigmas by asking groups of misunderstood, judged or marginalised Australians the awkward questions people from the general public have always wanted to know the answers to.
Their answers are startlingly frank.
Adam, left, is a former FIFO mining construction worker from Perth. Photo / ABC
"Even watching a needle ... I'd pass out, until the night a mate of mine coming out of Melbourne injected me for the first time," says Taz.
At the time, he was working long hours, loading and unloading semi-trailers by himself and transporting goods overnight from Sydney to Melbourne. The only way to get the job done, he says, was with the help of drugs like speed.
He explains he's been taking amphetamines for years, and tried ice one day because his dealer simply said "Try this, it'll rock ya".
For the past nine years, he's injected into the same spot near his left elbow.
"The reason I used to go there was I didn't have to let go of the steering wheel of the truck. Put it away in the dark," he says bluntly.
Olivia admits to being relatively naive, and says she started smoking ice simply because it looked like her friends were having a good time.
"Before I knew it, it was like replacing coffee, I suppose you could say. You'd wake up in the morning and have a pipe, and you'd have a pipe through the day, and you'd have a pipe at dinner, and definitely a pipe before bed. It's a bit of a joke.
"You try to outrun the comedown, you don't want to have the comedown, so you'd just keep smoking ice. You don't think you can survive without it once you get that hooked."
The interviewees agree they were able to go to work and perform well in the early stages, until their craving for drugs surpassed their ability to make rational decisions.
"It changes my thinking process," says Alisha, from Ballarat.
"It makes everything revolve around the ice use. You spent all day trying to get it, then you spend all day trying to get it more. It takes all your time."
She says she used to be a workaholic, who balanced two jobs seven days a week, but in the blink of an eye it was all gone.
"I'd spent all my money on drugs and have no money or food for anything. Soon as I'd get paid I'd go out and use it, and then I'd have no money left."
"Six years ago I had two houses, and I was paying the mortgage on both of them. I've been homeless on an off four years, and I've been in an out of jail for probably two years of those four years," muses Taz.
Like all the people featured in the episode, he's calm, articulate and thoughtful as he tries to convey his experiences with the drug.
It's difficult to imagine a time when he was violent or paranoid, but he explains at the height of his addiction, he was locked in a siege with police for eight hours following a particularly heated argument with his ex-partner.
"The had a command and control centre at the end of the street, they locked off half of the suburb, they locked up four schools.
"I took on the TRG (Police Tactical Response Group) and three dogs from the dog squad, unarmed, on ice. I've still got the holes in my leg to prove it."
Jay, from Sydney, worked as an escort to help support his habit. Photo / ABC
Jay, from Sydney, worked as an escort to support his habit. Sometimes he'd work for money, sometimes he'd work for drugs, and he confesses that aside from dealing with addiction, the experience has left some deep emotional scars.
"I now have PTSD from things that have happened," he says.
