Content Warning: This story contains mention of sexual and physical abuse, suicide and drug use.
“It’s like you’re in a fire and you’re pouring gasoline over yourself. You’re suffering, and you want it to stop and you don’t know how … but you’re continually adding fuel to the fire.”
By 13 years of age, Ophelia* had faced enough trauma to last a lifetime. After experiencing sexual abuse and family violence at the hands of her mother’s partner, she turned to drugs as a way to cope.
“Home was just not a place I wanted to be,” Ophelia laments. “I think I had [made] three suicide attempts by the time I was 18.”
“I didn’t have this sense of belonging, and when I took drugs I felt connected.”
“There was also a lot of stuff that was happening in the background that I was having to absorb, [and] I didn’t really have language for understanding,” Ophelia says of what drove her to use drugs.
As she got older, drugs continued to provide solace when she experienced family violence and further sexual abuse in her own relationships. This began a perpetual cycle with drug use.
“I was in three different relationships that were family violence, and I would often find that [drug use] was my coping mechanism.”
Ophelia says people often forget that drug use is a health and mental health issue, as people seek solutions for problems that feel insurmountable.
“Sometimes the drugs are like your safety. That’s how you feel safe because you don’t know how to solve your own problems, or you don’t have the tools or the skills or the resources to solve your own problems,” Ophelia says.
“When I was spiraling, I just didn’t have the capacity to make any kind of good choices. And I think people often are sitting on the outside of that and just think, what the hell’s wrong with this person?”
In 2015, Ophelia says she started using ice consistently. Within a year, she had “developed a pretty intense habit” and was partaking in poly substance use, taking five or six substances at once.
During a seven-year relationship with a prolific ice user, her drug use increased to 4–5 days a week, leading to several “close call” overdoses. Ophelia was initially surprised by how drug-dependent her partner was because he didn’t conform to the stereotypical image of an ice user.
“I had this perception of people who use drugs as being quite noticeable that there were issues,” Ophelia admits.
“It kind of threw me a bit … he was not the person he’d been 10 years ago. His life had derailed but when I saw him, he didn’t look like he was completely derailed.”
When Ophelia reported her partner to the police for family violence and sexual assault, she found her accusations weren’t taken seriously after disclosing her illicit drug use.
The police’s line of questioning and tone completely shifted, “I’d call it more ‘interrogated’,” she says.
“They got a little bit aggressive to try and give me a bit of an idea about what it would be like going to court, where I’m being aggressively cross-examined by my ex-partner’s lawyer.”
Ophelia felt like she was being victim-blamed. “I was made to feel like because I’d taken this drug, like what did I expect to happen,” she says.
“I obviously felt deeply ashamed about that,” Ophelia says of the harmful impact of this moment on her ability to seek help in the future.
As her ice use continued, the shame followed Jodie for several years, discouraging her from seeking the medical and counselling support she so desperately needed.
By 2019, she hit a breaking point and realised she could no longer justify her ice use, kickstarting a years long process of five-day hospital detoxes and self-withdrawal programs at home. In that time, she also found the courage to leave the partner who had been spurring on her ice use.
In 2024, she found herself going into withdrawals at home and walked to a Uniting site that happened to be on her street. There, she was referred to Uniting’s Catalyst program and counselling services.
From that moment on, “I made a promise to myself that I’m going to say yes to the right things, and no to the wrong things,” Ophelia says.
Now two years sober, Ophelia is beaming with pride at how far she’s come.
“I’m like consistently outgrowing old versions of myself and just refining who I am as a person.”
“Despite everything I’ve been through, I don’t have a bitterness to the world. I still see beauty, and I still see love.”
Learn more about Uniting’s advocacy for harm reduction.
*The name of the person in this story has been changed to respect their privacy.
