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Stigma & Language Our survey shows that many people have experiences of discrimination or stigma because of their drug use, with majority coming from their own family or friends. This then followed from the wider community, the police and healthcare services. Some ways to tackle stigma with family and friends. It can be really hard … Continued

It was 7pm, we’d just arrived to the party. I thought I’d have a quick ciggie before going inside. Covid hasn’t helped with that initial social anxiety, especially arriving to a big party. I thought I’d slowly integrate myself into the space. While chatting to a bunch of friends a bump of K was offered … Continued

On a nice sunny day in summer a friend of mine brought over some GHB also known as liquid fantasy or frank. Me and two other friends who were there decided to have a dose of GHB. I have taken GHB quite a few times, so I knew what I was taking, what to expect, … Continued

My name is Jimmy. I’m a Grandad, a father, a taxi-driver and I owe my life to Narcan.   Last year I was using 80mg of Methadone, takeaway, but I would never drink it. Using a butterfly, I would carefully, slowly inject that 80mg and feel the warm slow rush of opiate through my system. … Continued

The brutality that was old school Hep C treatment…   So, I had Hep C. Strain 1.A.   This was the early 2000’s.   It was a shitty time for Hep C treatment, but FAR better than the outcome that people with the previously classed, non-A non-B Hepatitis had. Before they isolated Hepatitis C as … Continued

I remember the call..   Life was going great, not.   I had just recently been discharged from hospital with a horrific abscess in my arm. I was a mutant, but I was lucky to have still have an arm this “unpretty”. I had also had septicaemia, (blood poisoning) so I had been found unconscious … Continued

I was 23 years of age and working on Grey Street, St. Kilda (Melbourne). That is, I was picking up clients off the street and taking them up to my third floor apartment and providing sexual favours for money. My then friends were other working girls who worked in close proximity to me. We looked … Continued

I lost count the number of rude comments, judgments and assumptions that have been said to me over my 23 years. I can’t remember how many times I’ve woken up to the ‘BANG BANG BANG POLICE’ on the door at 5am. As a child I have been strip searched, police have attended my high school … Continued

Alcohol was the first drug I used. Both my parents drank heavily and there was often no food in the house. Sometimes I’d be staying away from home and knowing I was going back to no food, I would steal a straw to take home, which I could use to drink from the alcohol bottles … Continued

Most people on this planet have used drugs of some sort at various times in their lives; especially when you take into account tobacco, alcohol, caffeine and prescription drugs (anything from antidepressants to cholesterol reducing tabs). In some countries alcohol is illegal but smoking opium is not. I would say it is a human condition … Continued

I’ve experimented in almost all party and street drugs in my life and I have been asked to tell you about my time using GHB also known as fantasy, liquid ecstasy and frank. It comes in a liquid form and is taken orally. It can be measured out in a 3ml syringe and you squirt … Continued

I am a 22 year old girl. I completed year 12, completed a diploma in community welfare work, worked for the Department of Communities and other drug and alcohol organisations. I have traveled around Europe and currently study at university while working full-time as a health promotion welfare worker. I rent my own unit on … Continued

I first used intravenous drugs when I was 14 however my tendency toward addictive behaviours had manifested far before then… Be it the odd cigarette tentatively snuck in after school, stealing from Supré, toxic relationships – I’ve engaged in a multitude of self destructive, cyclical behaviours for almost as long as I can remember. When … Continued

I’ve dabbled with drugs i.e. speed, acid and cannabis since I was a teenager and I started using Heroin in 1989 (when the Heroin was still good). I was 25. My partner and I moved to Queensland in 1991 to escape our habits but of course our habits followed us and we ended up at … Continued

I am standing out the front of the hospital wondering if I could righteously kick my whole family out of the house, or maybe kill them even. The Doctor doling out my drugs every month (nothing fun just Interferon and Ribavirin) suggested I might benefit from antidepressants.  I wish she’d stop Interferon in my life, … Continued

I’m on my way to a certain football club to talk to certain doctors and other health professionals. I’ve never driven to Brisbane before, never. I used to train it to Biala to pick up my dose and score until they transferred me to the Coast and I found a good dealer here. My heart … Continued

I had headaches as a kid, rippers that affected my eyesight, had me cowering from the light and projectile vomiting. Most of the women in my family seemed cursed with the same affliction. You learn very quickly to feel one coming on, and you take a pill as ‘rescue’ before the point of no return, … Continued

When I heard the theme for this was around aging… or should I saw ‘experience’, I started to think about the changes I have seen in my 41 years on the mortal coil. And I found myself saying ‘back in my day’. But for this topic, I had to go further back than ‘my day’ … Continued

What’s it for? By Firefly The 60’s grew forgiveness from cannabis seeds Neither policing agenda, nor political creeds But on media bullshit, they made us feed Until with their lies, we reluctantly agreed Those were the days, the birth of rock and roll When drug use was legal, or so I am told No one … Continued

Getting on in life, one tends to ponder and reflect on crazy times and try to make some not crazy sense of it all. So it goes with my using. I’m 58 and started serious using at 17. Over the years I’ve had long bouts of messy high intensity using, and long bouts of abstinence, … Continued