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Addiction detox program at Caboolture helping people to permanently kick the habit
Karen knows she has a problem with alcohol and drug addiction — this is her 21st attempt to deal with it and move on with her life.
- The six-week LLW program at Caboolture addresses alcohol, cannabis, heroin and ice addiction
- It has just opened a new 20-bed centre thanks to an injection of federal funding
- The program offers free ongoing counselling to minimise the risk of relapse
She said she was just 10 years old when her alcoholic mother first offered her champagne.
"She then made me her drinking buddy," Karen said.
"She turned me into her best friend and started taking me to nightclubs in my teenage years.
"Immediately I was drinking to blackout."
The 57-year-old casual traffic controller, who wishes to remain anonymous, is part of a growing group of Australians — from millionaires to tradies — battling addiction issues.
They are looking for a safe place to detox without judgment, and a way to make it stick.
Heavy demand for services
Karen is hoping the Lives Lived Well (LLW) program at Caboolture, north of Brisbane, will succeed where other programs have failed.
It is hailed for therapy that offers ongoing intensive one-on-one counselling for free, in a bid to avoid relapses after the course ends.
It treats people addicted to alcohol, cannabis, heroin and ice and gets them back into the workforce.
Since their day rehabilitation program opened in late 2018, demand has been four times higher than expected, prompting a successful appeal for federal funding that paid for a new $11 million 20-bed centre.
It is a daily five-week detox program — three of those include intensive group therapy.
The program allows people to get on with their everyday lives, take the kids to and from school for example, or look after a pet at home, while kicking their habit on the quiet, rather than having to be packed off to a Brisbane hospital rehabilitation program as an in-patient.
'Drink, sleep, drink, sleep'
At her worst, Karen would drink from the moment she woke up until she would collapse again.
"I would basically drink, sleep, drink, sleep. Drinking Passion Pop, cask wine, and if I was flush might be a bourbon mix, but mostly wine," Karen said.
Karen said it has had a devastating effect on her health — she had a stroke at 37.
"I had always felt inferior and uncomfortable anyway — my identity was not fully formed — so with alcohol I could turn up at a party half-drunk.
"I found that thing that could help me function in this world.
"I was able to get a job, but my drinking would cause me embarrassing moments, blackouts at work functions, waking up with a fellow co-worker and thinking, 'Oh my God, what have I done?'
"But over time it lost its power, it lost its ability to anaesthetise me, and so I moved onto other things like cannabis and heroin, but alcohol has always been the mainstay because it is so socially acceptable."
Twenty years on, she hit rock bottom and was forced to move back in with her ageing mother.
A friend, who was also a trying to get off the booze, told Karen about the LLW detox program and she found the courage to sign up.
She is into her second week of detox, and with the help of a GP-monitored prescription for diazepam, has been able to live with the tremors that accompany withdrawal.
"I am struggling with sleeplessness and restlessness but coming in here and being able to offload and talk and learn different techniques helps a lot — I just have to focus on the next step," she said.
"I just needed this leg-up to stop, to start kind of liking and loving myself again.
"My youngest son is over the moon with my progress."
LLW nurse Lisa Williams said she had been staggered by the amount of alcohol some clients consumed.
"Generally, they can consume up to 40 standard drinks a day," Ms Williams said.
"So some people are drinking a full bottle of spirits, some between three to four bottles of wine."
She said alcohol was the hardest drug to kick because of its availability and acceptability.
"It is everywhere, people have to walk past bottle shops, it is quite a hard substance to come off," she said.
"We have a lot more success with meth and cannabis."
The clinic has treated people from all walks of life — young mums, teachers, nurses, teenagers, truckies and tradies.
LLW Caboolture chief executive Mitchell Giles said in private practice he had seen federal MPs, anaesthetists and dentists, all desperate for help.
He is a nurse specialising in mental health but said he had been stunned by the high need in the area for drug and alcohol rehab services.
Mr Giles said this program succeeded because of "its intensive counselling and support that teaches people skills".
"One of the good things about a group is [realising] 'I'm not alone — there are other people like me and I can learn from those people'," he said.
"They say when people have an alcohol or drug-related concerns, sometimes it takes up to nine tries to get off to resolve it.
"It is no different from somebody giving up cigarettes or going on a diet."
Mr Giles said the ultimate goal was to get people back to work but that was not the only measure of success.
"There's a whole bunch of other things that we can achieve that are equally important," he said.
"That might be they're drinking less or they're using less, or their relationships have improved, or they're back in education, or they're working casually or part-time, or they're not hanging around with a group that they were hanging around with before."
Former ice user Tom (not his real name) said he has turned his life around after 20 years of addiction.
Tom had a $400 a day habit and started dealing drugs to feed it, eventually realising his life had spiralled out of control.
"It just hit me right then and there — I was surrounded by other homeless people that had lost everything and were just in total survival mode, completely 100 per cent driven by their addictions and I realised that I had become one of those people," he said.
He joined the day detox program after he reconnected with his elderly parents and they gave him a roof over his head.
"I told myself I can't get back to my old life, I can't go back that way, because I know that one day I'd probably overdose or die or go to another level, like heroin," he said.
Tom said the team at LLW helped him "surrender" and gave him encouragement at every step.
"Just realising that I can't do it on my own and that's OK," he said.
He now runs a property maintenance business and has been drug-free for nearly a year.
"I have gone from where my life and my soul ended up in a rubbish tip and now I can create what I want out of life," Tom said.
Mr Giles said nearly 800 people had accessed the Caboolture alcohol and drug counselling and withdrawal programs in the past year.
"The brilliant thing is those people now have somewhere at least to go in their area to take that brave step and walk through the door," he said.
"It's valuing those people who have a lot of stigma attached to them — they can feel like somebody actually is concerned about them and cares for them."
