All the talk on mandatory detox after Jacqui Lambie’s comments, and on Tony Abbott’s ‘dob in a dealer’ strategy makes me realize that I’m so on track with my ‘what did you get right on drugs’ recovery approach. Jacqui Lambie, Tony Abbott, even drug users are speaking clichés.

Reading the Ice Times (aka Sunday Mail) about Tony Abbott’s new strategy of ‘dob in a dealer’. Really? Are we all in primary school? What a tragic waste of money the whole ice-task force is going to turn out to have been.

A lot of talk on mandatory detox after Jacqui Lambie’s comments, working in the field I totally understand her desperation, I see the pain drugs create in users and the emotional pain their actions create in others on a daily…

There seem to be more media stories on ice every day now. But I’ve noticed a shift away from the stereotypical demonizing of dealers and users.

After gaining extensive knowledge of drugs through my own addiction, work as a drug and alcohol counselor, and then as educator, author and therapist specializing in addiction, it became increasingly obvious to me that the existing drug recovery model badly needed updating.

THE RADICAL ROAD TO DRUG RECOVERY

From my first puff on a hash-laced joint, I said ‘yes’ to drugs. I couldn’t get enough of the wild adventures, from tripping in the forest on LSD, to shooting-up speed and performing with my band. I loved drugs, the intensity, the exhilaration the magic.

I believe that drugs are an evolutionary tool. They create change. The idea is to quit, leave the old behind and embrace the new in every part of life. Complacency is no longer part of the equation.

As a therapist specialising in holistic drug repair, I find I am now working with two distinct groups: drug-users and the parents of drug-users. Often the latter are much more distraught and desperate than the former. Particularly those parents who never used drugs themselves but, following government advice to ‘talk to their children about drugs’, initiated conversations that, due to the powerful emotions involved, became increasingly more confrontational until their relationship with their children broke down. These parents initially tried to be understanding (like the parents on the anti-drug television campaigns) but driven by the raw anguish of seeing their children destroy themselves and the agony of their own powerlessness to change the situation, ended up blaming, criticising and verbally attacking their children. This is not the way the scenario plays out on TV but unfortunately it is all too common in real life.