Breaking the cycle of addiction

Digging a mole out of her head while on methamphetamine, passively watching a woman beaten half to death and smashing the windows out at an alcohol drugs clinic were all clear signs  Kaylene Tahuhu’s teenage years were horrendously overrun by an addiction to drugs and alcohol. After a long, life-threatening process she’s now sober. The 26-year-old tells Stacey Knott her story from an addiction treatment centre she now works at.

Kaylene grew up around gang culture and substance abuse. She suffered abuse. Her teen years were spent chasing highs, behind bars and in failed rehab attempts. Originally from Christchurch, she spent much of that time living in her car around Blenheim. She was 13 when she started to get heavily into drugs and alcohol. 

She was arrested frequently for assault, aggravated assault, assaulting police and theft, all directly linked to her addictions. It started with drinking and cannabis abuse, but this lead on to other drugs.

She moved to Christchurch and fell into using methamphetamine.

“We would have a smoke in the morning, do what we had to do by lunchtime then have another – it would just continue on because it was readily available – you didn't stop to think about it.”

She describes the drug making her obsessive. Kaylene and her cousins would stay home and smoke it, then spend the day cleaning, always feeling like they needed to be racing to do things.

“There was one instance where I picked a mole out of the side of my head. There was blood going everywhere, I kept picking because I didn’t think I got it out. It’s obsessive, if there’s something you have to do you really do it obsessively.”

Kaylene says she eventually got sick of the lifestyle, so went back to Blenheim and unable to afford the habit she started using Ritalin, as well as continuing drinking and using cannabis.

“In the end I started owing people money ... I got into trouble with people I shouldn't be getting into trouble with.”

With her mother now living in Australia, Kaylene started associating with gangs.

“I was putting myself in unsafe situations but was feeling included by these people.”

I thought ‘I’m going to go to prison anyway so I may as well make it worthwhile’.

Around her 16th birthday, she went to Australia to stay with her mother and her partner, but this escalated her addiction issues – everything was so cheap and readily accessible.

While she was working while in Australia, as soon as she finished work, she would go home, drink and take pills then go to bed. She was soon sent back to New Zealand when she decided not to work anymore, just spending her days drinking and taking drugs.

Back in New Zealand and a month after her 18th birthday, she was sentenced to rehab for the first time at residential addiction treatment centre St Marks in Blenheim. The centre offers 16-week treatment programmes, with a holistic focus for “enduring personal growth and recovery”.

However, Kaylene was asked to leave after four weeks due to her lack of motivation. She  went right back to her old habits, was put back into rehab and dismissed again, and then a third time where she was dismissed three days before completing the programme, after this third failed attempt she started using intravenous drugs.

“I thought ‘I’m going to go to prison anyway so I may as well make it worthwhile’.”

“I moved in with a lady after treatment who was on the methadone programme. I started injecting her methadone. It wasn’t a life. I felt like I was just existing. I had numerous suicide attempts because there was nothing on this earth for me.”

Methadone is a government-funded opiate substitute given to outpatients as a substitute for illicit drugs like heroin, it’s usually dispensed through pharmacies to registered users and is meant to be taken orally as a liquid.  But as Kaylene found when people on the programme would have a weekly dose of methadone, some would sell every second day’s dosage, and drink on the day they did not have the drug, which is how Kaylene had access to it.

Many inject it, and Kaylene would never be able to find her own veins, so would get someone else to inject for her.

Around the same time the then legal high BZP was gaining popularity, and she injected that a few times, but was scared off it when someone had a seizure on the floor in front of her after taking it intravenously.

It escalated further when she was sentenced to prison with about 13 charges to her name, the judge told her “enough is enough” he gave her a two week prison sentence, but after that she started using again.

“I couldn’t stop buying drugs, selling drugs, using drugs and couldn't stop drinking, in the end that was my be all and end all. I used to live and lived to use.

The last straw was when she was arrested “off her face” drunk, and had taken methadone. She was taken to the Blenheim alcohol and drugs clinic, she went into a rage, knowing she needed help but frustrated that nothing had worked. She smashed all the windows along the front on the clinic.“I was an everyday drinker, I smoked all the time and any drug I could get my hand on I would use, it didn’t matter what it was or where it came from.”

She was then given a medical detox and was sentenced to a rehab centre in Auckland, where she stayed six months and cleaned up completely and started to embrace her Maori heritage.

She moved from Auckland to a kaupapa Maori treatment centre in Christchurch and met Maori family members who inspired her to accept and embrace her heritage.

She says suppressing this identity as well as her sexuality – she came out when she was 18 and is now engaged to her partner – were part of her addiction struggle.

“I think a lot of the time identity is one thing that can be part of why people use. When you lose that identity of yourself, or you don’t own that identity.”

With about five of her teenage years wasted on drugs and alcohol, Kaylene’s story is a common one in New Zealand. We like to experiment with drugs while we are young. According to statistics from the 2007/2008 New Zealand Alcohol and Drug Use Survey of people who had ever used any drug, one in three (34.6 per cent) had first used drugs when aged 15–17 years, of those aged 16-17 surveyed 2.3 per cent used ecstasy, 3.7 per cent stimulants including methamphetamines and the highest rate to other age groups saw 1.2 per cent of 16-17 year olds using injected drugs.

And when it comes to young people serving time in New Zealand, Kaylene’s story is relatable to many people.

At a 2007 ALAC Conference Judge John Walker estimated that 80 per cent of young people who appeared in the Youth Court had alcohol or drug dependency or abuse issues connected with their offending. He said by the time the 15 and 16-year-olds come to court, their dependency is already well established, often because they come from homes where drug and alcohol use is a normal part of life.

Now working as a counsellor at the treatment centre she was dismissed from three times – Blenheim’s St Marks – Kaylene says staying sober can be tough but she wants to use her story to show other young people they can break the cycle.

She visits young people in correction facilities to tell them her story – and like Judge Walker said, she finds that many, if not all, are in them because of drugs or alcohol. They tell her they hate their parents and had awful upbringings, she tells them she was assaulted and saw horrendous acts of violence. Their stories are like hers. And she says, Maori are over-represented.

“When I go to the youth prison I see that most kids in there are Maori ... I don’t know if it’s their upbringing or that they come from low socioeconomic areas, most do,” she says.

She tells them “you can move past all that stuff...you don’t have to repeat the cycle happening  in your family – it takes one person to break the cycle, if you can do that and be open to doing that you can pave the way forward for a next generation.”

If you or someone you know might have addiction issues there are ways to get help.

Most towns and cities in New Zealand have clinics and counsellors you can speak to about addiction issues. You can also call Alcohol Drug Helpline on 0800 787 797 Or visit Addictions Help for clinic listings and advice

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