Impacts-of-methamphetamine-in-Victoria-Community-Assessment-Penington-Institute

Deciding to seek helpFor both Xavier and William, long term and regular methamphetamine use resulted in them hitting acrisis point and deciding to seek help. For Xavier, deep depression and suicidality led him to selfharm.“I spent Christmas alone, and that brought me into a very suicidal place. I hit the ice really bad andtried to hurt myself in different ways. I’d cut myself up, if I was bleeding I’d bandage myself, and if itgot too serious I’d pour alcohol on it to take out the infection and bandage that up.”After staying awake for two and a half weeks, he had an altercation with his dealer, which resulted ina suicide attempt.“I realised how alone I was, how wrong it was – everything I’ve been doing. Some of the memories ofthe things I’ve done while being on it...”This ended up being the catalyst to seek help.“For me it was either get back on the right track or I was too scared I wouldn’t make it... “Both young men were referred to a residential withdrawal service, William through a local AODworker, and Xavier had previously been there to withdraw from cannabis. The service providesresidential withdrawal for young people aged up to 22, for between 10-14 days. It provides a holisticenvironment for young people, where they have access to therapeutic counselling, specialist AODworkers, and social and recreational programs (including art spaces, weights room, massage etc).They describe the treatment process as hard. William, who has been off methamphetamine formonths notes:“I think people with a meth addiction, different strategies need to be put in place about how they goabout kicking it ... If you’re seeing a counsellor about it, things have to be done differently...explaining ways to quit, not just you’ve got to stop... For me, I’d do what I did, focus on the twothings that before you used you loved most in the world... and use that as leverage to get out of thathole”He noted that after withdrawal, there was a lot of work to do:“I think any meth addict who goes to see a counsellor needs to be warned, if you want to quit, theywill, but it’s the hard yards. Don’t ever expect that it will be a smooth ride to stop using because it’snot.”“You get a lot of issues arise, because you’re not using, but you need to find other ways of dealingwith them rather than going back to using. Because, ultimately, you’re going to feel just as shit asyou were.”58