James’ Story of Drug and Alcohol Addiction Recovery

James is approaching one year clean and sober after completing the 29-day Drug and Alcohol Detox Program at Hader Clinic Queensland. This is his story.

I started drinking and taking party drugs when I was 16, and the alcohol and drug addiction carried on from there. I was drinking and using every day, and then in the year before I sought treatment, I was injecting meth daily. I needed help to stop, and I needed to save my marriage, so I was admitted into treatment at Hader Clinic Queensland to undergo their detox and withdrawal program.

I took anything and everything – weed, acid, cocaine and then meth. I loved partying and in turn, loved taking drugs. I smoked weed every day, but I kept the other drugs until the weekend. Eventually, it became harder to get up and work, so I started using meth daily and then ultimately injecting it. I’ve been a mechanic for 20 years and had my own business for 10. Although I was still getting stuff done at work while using, I was spending a lot of time stuffing around during the day and then having to get it all done at night.

The drug and alcohol addiction mostly impacted my relationship with my wife. We’d grown up together and have been married for 25 years. We did everything together, drinking and drugs, you name it. But in the last couple of years before I got addiction treatment at Hader Clinic Queensland, my meth use ramped up and my wife and I started to drift apart. It didn’t help that I was also working big hours to supplement my wife’s gambling addiction.

Eventually, I knew I had to go to rehab. I was talking to an older fellow, a role model, and I was explaining that I just didn’t know how to go to rehab with the business and everything. My business was providing for my family as my wife had recently lost her job due to her gambling addiction and I was worried about the kids. So, my wife went and spoke to my sister, and told her I was injecting meth and what had been going on for us. My family confronted me and started looking for rehabs.

I wasn’t keen on residential addiction treatment, but I knew I had to do something to save my marriage and my family. We ended up finding Hader Clinic Queensland, and their 29-day program looked like the right amount of time that I could be away from my family and my business. My mum came and helped out with the kids and financially as well to set me up for detox, even talking to Hader Clinic Queensland on the phone a couple of times.

It took me a couple of weeks at Hader before I actually started listening and participating. We had an in-house men’s meeting that was pretty emotional, and I ended up having an eye-opening moment, the counsellor called it a ‘spiritual awakening’. After that, I really put my head down and started doing the work, stopped messing around and telling them what I thought they wanted to hear. Mark was really great during my time at Hader Clinic Queensland, I got a lot out of him during the lessons. But the main thing I took out of my time there was how important the meetings were.

I’m coming up to a year of sobriety now and it’s been great. Life’s been really good, the kids are doing well at school, the business is going well and we’ve also got a baby on the way. My wife and I are recovering together and getting along. I’m really lucky that we have each other. It’s been 8 months since my wife has had a drink, drug, or a game, she’s doing really well. I’ve been going to on average 6 meetings a week, and I have a sponsor. My sponsor wants me to start the steps again now that they’ve entered the picture, so I will complete step one by the year mark, which is coming up soon. I’m working on finding the balance for everything at the moment. It hasn’t been easy but I’ve been putting my mind to it and just keep moving forward.