On February 14, 2011, Chantelle, then 18, came home to find her mother and brother dead.

They had committed suicide together in their Queensland home.

Feeling alone and unable to cope, Chantelle returned to her hometown of Geelong, where she fell into the wrong crowd.

“I didn’t realise how bad the (drug) ice was down there and I was stupid enough to try it one night,” she said.

“I never stopped.”

Chantelle, now rehabilitated and living in Batemans Bay, suffers daily with the effects of her crystal methamphetamine addiction.

She did not wish her surname to be published, but agreed to share her story with the Bay Post/Moruya Examiner.

“It destroyed my life,” she said.

“I lost my house, I’ve got diabetes, I may not be able to have kids.”

Chantelle also lost her teeth.

“I had perfect teeth,” she said.

“I’ve lost friendships, I’ve had people lose their own lives.

“I lost all the money I had inherited.

“I now have a criminal record I am so ashamed of.

“And all I’ve got to thank for that is myself and ice. It is the worst drug, but I chose that because I didn’t want to feel the emptiness without my mum and my brother.”

Chantelle said the drug numbed her.

“I could get up every morning, put on my clothes, walk out, do shopping like everything was normal,” she said.

“I didn’t have to deal with my mum and brother not being there.”

A teenager once on the straight and narrow, Chantelle was jailed five times for serious offences committed while high.

She also cannot recall how many times she “totalled a mate’s car”.

“I don’t know how I survived,” Chantelle said.

“It frightens the hell out of me.

“I didn’t see what I was doing as bad. 

“You don’t think it’s wrong, because you’re not ‘you’ on ice.

“It wasn’t until I spent a few nights in jail and I would go to court (that) I would think ‘f***, what I have I done?’

“That’s why I am ready to make a change, because that is not me.”

Chantelle said she made it through with the help of her dad, who lives in Batemans Bay.

After four years on ice, wanting to stop was the key.

“Dad tried so many times to get me to come here, but I didn’t want him to see the way I was,” she said.

“I wasn’t ready to feel the death of my mum and brother, so I always went back to Geelong and got back on ice.

“The fifth time I went to jail, I had a lot of support, then I had contact with my father and my grandparents.

“I said to Dad, ‘if you promise to pick me up on (my release) I will come to Batemans Bay - I cannot get out alone’.”

Chantelle’s dad was waiting for her on that August day last year, and she has not looked back.

She is working, studying retail, and still hopes to follow her dream into the Navy.

“It is so hard to live a normal life, but I don’t ever want to go back,” she said.

“No one can be on ice and have a normal life, but they don’t realise until it’s too late.

“I’m thankful I had my dad to take me away - I have him and my grandparents to thank.”

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