Waking up to life
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When Jodie was a child, she and her siblings used to line up in their kitchen, their little arms stretched out and hands cupped open, waiting for their evening dose of sleeping pills.
“I remember being 11 years old with my hand out for Temazepam from my mum,” she says. “My mum was having many sexual relations when it was bed time, so it was easier to drug us and get rid of us.”
By the time Jodie was kicked out of the family home when she was 14, she was already suffering from a serious addiction to the sleeping pills – an addiction which then spiralled out of control.
“I was in rehab the first time when I was 15,” she says, as she recounts her 12-year battle with methamphetamines and heroin. She tried to get clean and sober eight times and spent time in Salvation Army rehabilitation centres and those of other agencies.
“I was raised, pretty much, by youth workers,” she says.
“If I didn’t get the continuous help that I needed – and I was very mentally ill and extremely suicidal – I probably wouldn’t even be here.”
”The Salvation Army was the only organisation that helped me and never turned me away.”
During her addiction she had three children, and she often received assistance to pay bills and put food on the family table. But when her children were removed by the then Department of Community Services, she felt too ashamed to ask for any further help.
It was at that point that she decided to make a permanent change and succeeded at her eighth attempt in a rehabilitation centre.
“I’m clean and sober and I have been for five years,” she says today. “When I tell my story now it’s like it’s someone else’s. I can’t even connect myself to it.”
After her final rehabilitation, Jodie did a volunteers course at The Salvation Army’s Collaroy Centre, then studied youth work at TAFE and gained employment. She then went through a five-year legal battle to regain custody of her children.
Now, even though Jodie’s stable and on track, she still requires assistance from time to time, and The Salvation Army is the first place she turns to.
“I was so stoned when I was a mum before, I didn’t realise all the things I had to do! So now I’ve got the three kids and I’m clean and sober … but it’s just ended up a lot more difficult than I thought, financially.
“All the money I would have spent on drugs and alcohol – everything now goes on the kids.”
With her daughter trying out for representative netball and her son winning medals in his ju-jitsu competitions, Jodie still can’t believe it sometimes when she reflects on how her life has changed.
“In that time of addiction and youth homelessness and all of that, I was so angry and the feelings were so intense inside of me that I can’t even try to tap into who I was. Because I don’t even think or feel like that now.”
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