Monday, October 9, 2000. I was 14 years old, in the fourth form at Hagley Community College in Christchurch, due to start back at school after the holidays. However, there were different plans in store for me.
A self-proclaimed wild child, I’d found myself in big strife with my parents and the law. I had a thing for stealing cars – only my parents’ cars, though. I wound up appearing in court on 14 charges of car conversion and three of burglary. Luckily, because I was young and my offences weren’t deemed too serious, I was discharged without conviction on all counts.
But I didn’t get away scot free. The good people at Youth Specialty Services decided the best option to deal with me and my wicked ways was to send me to an alcohol and drug rehabilitation centre. That’s how I came to be at Queen Mary Hospital in Hanmer Springs.
Growing up I felt as if I didn’t know who I was, who I was meant to be, or where I fit in. I was dealing with issues relating to my adoption at birth, and there were questions of sexuality on the horizon. My concentration at school had taken a rapid decline. I was all over the show.
I had no idea what was in store for me on the road ahead; the only thing I could envision was that movie Girl Interrupted, which is set in an asylum.
This feeling of helplessness led me, like many other teenagers at some stage or another, to delve into the world of alcohol and drugs. I used them to make myself feel better, to free my mind, to socialise with my friends, and to numb what I perceived back then as life’s negative offerings.
I’ll never forget the day my parents dropped me off at the hospital. At the end of a long drive I saw an old, washed-out building set against a beautiful mountain backdrop. I had no idea what was in store for me on the road ahead; the only thing I could envision was that movie Girl, Interrupted, which is set in an asylum.
I’d never been away from home or my family before and now I was to be gone for three months. To say I was overwhelmed doesn’t come close to the emotions that were running through my head. My family have always been there for me through thick and thin, and one reassurance was that attending the program so close to home meant my dad could bring friends to visit me. Even now, putting words to the way I was feeling is hard for me.
The nursing staff were caring, warm, middle-aged ladies who saw me as a precious wee boy, a little out of his depth. They went out of their way to make sure I got settled in; I think it was their warmth that made me feel OK about things. After I was settled, the place wasn’t as daunting as I’d anticipated it to be. With its oh-so-tranquil surroundings, the hospital was actually quite calming.
During my first day, my eyes were opened to things I’d never dreamed of. People from different walks of life, mixed together, all exchanging stories about where we’d come from and how we’d come to be at the hospital. There were middle- to upper-class wine lovers from ritzy areas in Auckland; gang members and associates who liked their drugs; a couple of gang-related kids who were out of control; even a Malaysian man who’d been sent all the way to New Zealand by his family after suffering a breakdown. I’m still close friends with some of them to this day. Although everyone was so different, we all suffered from the same disease: addiction.
As a 14-year-old I think it only served as an eye-opener into the world of drugs and aspects of adult life I’d previously been sheltered from.
As a “client” of the youth programme, I attended 12 to 16 weeks of workshops with about ten other kids, all aged between 14 and 18. The psychodrama workshop in particular had a lasting impression on me. People re-enacted events and situations from their past to help them gain a new or clearer perspective on them. It’s hard to explain how psychodrama works; a lot of the things we worked on during those groups weren’t things people generally talk about, let alone re-enact. It was a very hard task for a lot of us.
Sometimes, when I think back, I tell myself that I didn’t really need to go there. In some ways, it only served as an eye-opener into the world of drugs and aspects of adult life I’d previously been sheltered from. Certainly, later on in my teens, I found myself in a more serious bout of addiction, which really was way worse than that which landed me at Queen Mary Hospital – but that’s a whole other story. Anyway, by then, Queen Mary had closed down, and I had to sort myself out.
Queen Mary Hospital gave me the therapy and spiritual guidance needed to find out exactly who I was and am today. More importantly, what I learned allowed me to be free of the weight that’d previously held me down and contributed to my troubles. I may not have experienced the normal route, but I have gone on to do a lot better than the path I was previously on had promised. I’m now 28 years old and free from all addictions, other than to nicotine and caffeine; as bad as they are, they’ve probably been the best support network I’ve had since leaving the treatment programme.
I will be forever thankful to Queen Mary Hospital and the amazing staff that ran it when I was there. It’s tragic that the hospital was closed 11 years ago when New Zealand needs more facilities like it. My experience in there helped me find out who I was and allowed me to ‘dry out’; it put my life back into clear perspective, at a time when I didn’t have the ability to do it myself.
Facing my demons was a challenging time, but I also discovered what life meant to me. Despite the fact I later went on to endure another addiction episode in my life, I feel that Queen Mary Hospital had taught me the skills I needed to beat that relapse and come out on top. It gave me the strength to face the world.
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