News - Berwick - 13th March 2014

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Connecting people & communities BERWICK

Incorporating South-East Star Real Estate

Thursday, 13 March, 2014

A Star News Group publication Phone: 5945 0666

Berwick

Connecting people

40c inc. GST and communities www.

south easter

.com.au

n

Doveton’s playground clean-up

Scouts hunt forr a hall

Cavs claim m pre-season n crown

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SPORT

Thursday, 13

March, 2014

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Propertyy Lift out

QU

■ A former addict tells of depths of drug horror...

Meth madness ICE

EPIDEMIC By LACHLAN MOORHEAD AT THE height of his three-year ice addiction, James wouldn’t sleep for four days straight and hallucinated that snakes were eating him alive. Heavily dependent on the drug, the 32-year-old’s life spiralled out of control soon after he began using it. James (not his real name), who has now been clean for more than 12 months, spoke of the extreme paranoia that consumed him while he was high on ice, including a harrowing episode which saw him hallucinating on the floor of a shed in Cranbourne for eight hours, taken to hospital the next day and transferred to a psychiatric ward for 10 days after that. “I was thinking I was getting eaten alive, for eight hours,” James said. “I thought there were bugs crawling down the wall, I could see them. I could actually see them, and spiders crawling down the wall. “And snakes kept coming to bite me, and they were biting into me and eating me alive. But it was through numbness, I was all numb.” James, who lives in Doveton, recalled how he couldn’t even recognise his own mother when she came to visit him at the hospital. “I thought I was going to die a few times, when I was in hospital. “My mother came to see me and I didn’t even know who she was,” James said. “I really thought I was going to die, and I kept telling her, ‘I’m gonna die now, it’s time for me to go.’

“She was in tears; she couldn’t believe I didn’t know who I was.” At the age of 16, James made his way from rural Victoria to Melbourne. He started “hitting the drugs” a few years later, experimenting with marijuana, speed, heroin and everything in between. By the age of 28, James had started using ice, injecting the methamphetamine into his bloodstream after a friend showed him how to. James said the drug was like nothing he had ever taken before and extremely hard to stop using. “You’re also addicted to the actual needle, going in and feeling that instant feeling,” he said. “You could feel it run through your whole body, straight to your head, up the back of your neck.” James was soon caught in the throes of an ice addiction, one which saw him stay awake for four days straight without food and hardly any fluids. Employed at a pallet company in Springvale, James would work and drive while he was high on ice. His workmates let him sleep at the warehouse overnight because he had nowhere else to go. As his life spiralled dangerously out of control, James grew estranged from his parents while falling deeper into the world of addiction, living in boarding houses where ice was commonplace. Devastated by the deterioration of his relationship with his parents, James sought solace through taking the drug. “I ended up choosing that (ice) and with my father not wanting to know me, I’d use more ’cause I was hurt, and so you try and escape that hurt. “In the end I just wanted them back, so bad.” Continued on page 4

Balloon goes up for Demons

WHILE the Melbourne Demons were no match for the reigning premiers, Casey Fields still put on a great show both on and off the field on Saturday. The sports precinct came alive as more than 9000 people packed the venue to watch the Dees take on the Hawks in a practice match. Hawthorn proved too strong on the day, beating Melbourne 21.16 (142) to 4.8 (32). But it wasn’t all about the game, with plenty of action off field to keep the whole family entertained. Isla Young from Cranbourne got into the spirit of the day and cheered on her beloved Dees. For more photos from the day, turn to page 14 and for the match report, turn to Sport. 116358 Picture: STEWART CHAMBERS

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