By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
GONE are the days when alcoholics and heroin addicts “at their lowest ebb” could walk in off the street and get detox treatment, says Dandenong-based detox unit manager David Dawson.
Now stretched drug services have waiting times for treatment as they tackle the rising numbers of those gripped by the mentally corrosive and addictive substance ‘ice’, crystal methamphetamine.
Mr Dawson, who heads South East Alcohol and Drug Services (SEADS) detox unit, estimates a wait of about one week – if the client first gets a doctor’s appointment and referral.
“If you come in cold off the street, there’s not much chance of you going straight in.”
The constantly-full 12-bed SEADS unit usually contains at least two ice addicts each week.
Users are kept awake by ice’s stimulant effects.
At the clinic, they flop down on a bed and just crash for three of their eight-day stay.
“It’s hard to come off ice but we medicate them so they don’t have any issues with it.
“Sometimes I think heroin withdrawals are worse but I’m not 100 per cent sure.”
The typical ice-user profiles are young men and women in their 20s and early 30s. One of the dangers of ice abuse is it could “tip them over the edge” into mental illness.
“You see the before and after pictures and what it does to your health, the psychosis that goes with it,” Mr Dawson says. “It kills them.”
“But there are plenty who can come up out of it and live healthy productive lives.
“It’s not the dead-end of life.”
The waits are longer for three-month-stay residential rehab clinics – often the next crucial step for a person who’s broken their physical addiction at an eight-day SEADS detox program.
The rehab clinics tackle psychological long-term substance addiction by teaching lifestyle and diet changes.
They build up clients’ health recovery and ward them from bad influences and towards wholesome friends, family and interests.
Managers at drug treatment services St John of God Pinelodge Clinic in Dandenong and Stepping Up in Cranbourne estimate rehab waiting lists for ice patients stretch to four weeks.
That wait for rehab could be a critical period for relapse. Ice and cannabis are “available and cheap”; the user’s old drug-taking friends can also be quickly back on the scene.
“Ideally we try to help the client in counselling for that waiting period,” Stepping Up team leader Mick Gray said.
Amanda Drake, clinical risk and quality manager at St John of God Pinelodge Clinic, said therapy was a particularly hard road for the growing numbers of ice addicts. “The problem with ice is it’s such a complex thing to fix. It’s like even getting off cigarettes – you have to want to do it.
“Drug addiction is a chronic and relapsing disorder. The recovery can be years.”
She’s seen how ice had destroyed many lives, regardless of socio-economic background and family history.
“It affects the entire family. It also creates financial issues with the family struggling for money.”
Inspector Bruce Kitchen of Greater Dandenong police said a wide range of people, 13 years and up, were using ice.
He said its violent side-effects were fuelling assaults and low-level robberies.
“It’s relatively cheap to obtain – cheaper than heroin.
“Research tells us ice is one of the most active drugs on the market. “
For more information on ice, call Direct Line on 1800 888 236, SEADS on 8792 2330 or Turning Point on 9890 2220.
