Michelle Preston and Donna Falconer have made a brave call this week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
These two woman have spoken out about the pain ice use causes families in our community.
They are doing this because loved ones have succumbed to this highly addictive drug.
The system has let woman such as these down.
Nowhere is this more true than in rural areas such as ours.
Ice can make its way into our communities with ease, but getting help is so much harder when you live outside metropolitan areas.
For every addict, there is a suffering family, devastated by the choices their relatives have made and, in many cases, left picking up the pieces.
As Donna Falconer says, too often grandparents are in the front line, without enough support when a parent succumbs to addiction.
The Eurobodalla has no residential rehabilitation and recovery facility.
Addicts who have made the decision to quit must reach a service in Nowra, Queanbeyan or further in order to get the intensive help they need to excise ice from their lives.
That is if they can gain admission. The queues for residential care are long.
An experienced coordinator of one such service told the Bay Post/Moruya Examiner several years ago that ice addicts required four times the length of in-house care as those addicted to alcohol or other illicit drugs.
While a 12-week program might be effective for someone giving up the grog or cannabis, that simply did not cut it for an ice addict. He said 12 months was usually needed for such a destructive substance.
That makes the need for more centres, far more widely spread around NSW, even more urgent.
Ice does not discriminate.
Indigenous and non-Indigenous families are feelings its devastating effects and our jails are bursting at the seams. There is a sorry stream of people in and out of our courts on ice-related charges.
If someone you know is affected by drug use or addiction, phone the Alcohol and Drug Information Service (ADIS) on (02) 9361 8000.
Members of the community can contact ADIS at any time for confidential information, advice and referral services.