Displaying items by tag: drug and alcohol

1983 sticks out to me. I did a really bad pre-season. I was down, I couldn’t train properly. I felt like I had a really bad flu. That was the start of my mental health problems, but it was decades until I was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder.

I got recruited from the under 15s at Strathmore to play for the Essendon under 19s. When I was 17, I played my first game in the Essendon Seniors. I ended up at the Swans and in ‘89 I had one of my best years. I think I came third in the best and fairest.

Then things went downhill again in ‘91. I’d sit in the toilets before our warm up and I’d cry. Then I’d have to go and play a game, which was not only physically demanding, it was mentally exhausting. Mum was driving me to the airport after a game in Melbourne and I burst into tears. I said, “Mum, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve got to stop. I can’t take it.”

I was 28 at the time and there was no real understanding of mental health issues back then. It’s only in the last few years that organisations like SANE have really stood up and raised awareness. And with the AFL, it’s only really come about now with publicity around people like Buddy Franklin and Chris Yarran that the public and clubs are more aware. But there was just nothing like that.

Without footy, I had no discipline – to go to training, to stay off the grog, to keep fit. All that went out the window. I’d start going out on Friday nights and taking cocaine, and it got to a stage where I was basically doing coke every day. You lose everything – all your discipline, friends, money. I was so far gone, I was just leaving a path of destruction behind me.

Through a mate, I was offered a place in rehab. I didn’t have any medical insurance, so friends rallied around and raised the money. The day I was leaving, I had my bag and footy under my arm and opened the gate. There were about 50 people waiting and they all turned and looked at me. It hit me at once what I’d done to myself. It all hit me. And I decided to fight it.

I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression when I was about 43. Since 18, people had been telling me to stop feeling sorry for myself, to stop being a sook. At 43 I finally found out what was wrong with me.

In late 2014 I decided to go to the Essendon past players Christmas barbeque. That year, Simon Madden was hosting it. He said, 'Mate, I don’t know how to talk to you, because I just don’t know what you’ve been through. What about we catch up for a coffee?'

That was a major step for me, to sit in a coffee shop with one of my old friends. I had distanced myself from friends and family for so long. And now to have someone to talk to on a daily basis − that’s been pretty important to me.

It’s such a big issue, the mental health issue. So many people suffer, and so many people just hide it. I can’t emphasise this enough – you have to talk to someone, you have to go and get help.

It will steer you in the right direction to make the right decisions in life, so you can go on and lead a normal and happy life.

I’m a living example that with help and support you can come out the other side.

James has a mission. At the age of 36, he found something that gave real purpose to his life – to educate young people about the dangers of drugs which can trigger mental illness.

Tentatively he sat down and began to write:

When I opened my eyes it was morning, but not your average start to the day. The distinctive voices of four friends I had not seen for months were talking to me inside my head.

He had taken himself back to the day he was admitted to Rozelle Hospital in Sydney when he was just 18.

Putting into words the experience of his drug-taking, mental illness and the long journey to reconstruct his life took James two years.

‘I found it very cathartic,’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t be able to remember it all now because I dealt with it by writing the book.’

He describes the process as healing not only for himself, but also for his mother, Victoria, with whom he lives in Sydney. She read everything he wrote each day. ‘It was horrendous,’ she recalls with a shudder. ‘It brought everything back.’

James relates his story with raw honesty and great courage. He started taking drugs when he was 15 because everyone he knew was doing the same.

‘I never thought about the damage,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know what Schizophrenia was before someone told me I had it. I went to one rave party called Psychosis 4 and I didn’t even know what Psychosis meant. Then all of a sudden I just messed my whole brain up.’

He wrote the book –  Escaping to Reality – ‘to stop people from ending up like me. I can’t even hold a part-time job at the moment.’

Since that day when he was first admitted to Rozelle, James has been hospitalised four times. Victoria has been there for him every day.

His mother had no idea James was taking drugs.

‘It has been a huge learning curve for me,’ she admits. ‘At the beginning when James became ill, I didn’t know what to do with him. We took him to Rozelle and the doctors were great, but watching him go into the locked ward was like a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.'

When James came home from hospital he would lie for hours on the settee in what Victoria describes as ‘his great big old coat’. She felt helpless and isolated.

'He had done so well at school.' she says, 'I was tempted to say to people that that is what James is really like – that this James is not him. Apparently mothers do this.'

Although she says she is over it now, Victoria’s anguish is still palpable.

At the start of James' illness, during the months before he was settled on the most helpful medication, he was, says Victoria, in a terrible state. At one point Victoria took him back to hospital, where doctors tried him on a new medication.

‘I hung around for hours,’ says Victoria. ‘Eventually they said I could go and see him. He was asleep so I shook his shoulder gently. He looked up at me and said, "Hello Mum." It was marvellous! He was back – just like that.’

Once his medication was working well, James started a traineeship in Star City Casino. He was sharing a house with friends and enjoying his work but unfortunately slipped back into the party scene.

He stopped taking his medication, started using ecstasy and wildly overspent on his credit card. He was soon unwell and back in hospital.

‘Once I got out of that place,’ he says, ‘there was no way I would ever touch drugs ever, ever again. I just didn’t want to destroy my whole life completely.’

James now lives quietly, taking each day as it come. He sees his psychiatrist once a month, takes his medication, and gets on with his life.

He enjoys a game of pool, rides his mountain bike in the bush, and practices on his beloved electric guitar. He would like to play in a cover band one day.

‘That’s not taking me back into a drug environment,’ he hastens to add. ‘I would be a damn fool to give up everything I’ve worked for.’

James still gets 'the horrors' every now and then – the voice in his head, severe paranoia and attacks of extreme anxiety. When that happens he takes sanctuary in his mother’s lounge.

‘I come and sit in here,’ he says, ‘It’s safe. I don’t want to talk to anyone – I can’t. It can last 20 minutes or all night. No-one can understand it. If there is a hell, that is what it is.’

James is careful to avoid what he calls bad stress. ‘Caffeine will do it,’ he says. ‘Alcohol, or even being in a crowd.’

Writing and publishing his book has given direction to his life. He had an edition printed privately and is keen to bring it to the attention of Year 10 students in schools.

He is particularly thrilled by a message he received from a friend of his father’s, whose son had read a copy of Escaping to Reality.

He sent James an email saying his son had stopped taking marijuana, stopped smoking cigarettes and turned his life around at school.

‘Your words have made a difference,’ he told James. ‘You helped my boy and I thank you.’

‘If I had had this book at 16 or 17, things would have been very different for me too,’ he says quietly. 

Quick Facts

Cannabis (marijuana, hashish, weed, dope) is the most commonly used illicit recreational drug in Australia. It’s a depressant psychoactive substance that can cause temporary psychotic symptoms and, in some cases, full psychotic disorders like schizophrenia.

• Cannabis facts

  • It’s addictive: cannabis contains THC, a highly addictive chemical.
  • It’s common: more than 1 in 10 Australians aged 14+ have used cannabis in the past year
  • It’s very common in people with psychotic disorders: cannabis use is much higher in people living with psychotic disorders than in the general population or even people with other mental illnesses. Up to a quarter of people diagnosed with schizophrenia may also have a cannabis use disorder.

• Cannabis myths

  • Myth: ‘A little bit is harmless’
  • Reality: Cannabis can cause psychotic symptoms even at low doses.

  • Myth: ‘My mate is fine, so I’ll be fine’
  • Reality: Cannabis affects different people differently. Other people’s use can’t predict your reaction.

  • Myth: ‘Cannabis is the biggest cause of psychosis’
  • Reality: Cannabis use makes you more likely to experience psychosis, but your genetics, early development and life experiences have a much stronger effect on your chances of becoming ill.

• Can cannabis cause psychosis?

  Here’s what research says about cannabis use and psychosis:

  Cannabis use can cause you to experience psychotic symptoms

  Along with the traditional high, cannabis use can cause paranoia, delusions and hallucinations in people who don’t already have a mental illness, even in small doses.

  Cannabis use can also trigger or worsen psychotic symptoms in people living with an illness like schizophrenia, even when their illness is otherwise stable and responding well to treatment.

  Cannabis can trigger a psychotic illness in susceptible people

  Some things can make it more likely that you will experience a psychotic disorder at some point in your life. These include your genetic make-up, your mother’s health during pregnancy, complications with your birth, child abuse, some kinds of head injury and infection, drug abuse, living in urban areas and experiencing high stress and social disadvantage.

  If you already have a predisposition like this, cannabis use can trigger an illness. It can also cause symptoms to occur far sooner than they would otherwise have done.

  Although anyone can experience psychotic symptoms from cannabis use, it hasn’t been demonstrated yet whether cannabis can cause a psychotic illness in someone who isn’t otherwise susceptible.

• What about medical marijuana?

  Medical marijuana was made legal in Australia in late 2016. It has a growing range of uses, but it isn’t a proven treatment for psychotic illness.

  If you’re worried about the risk of psychosis in using medical marijuana to treat another condition, talk to your doctor.

• References

  http://www.aihw.gov.au/alcohol-and-other-drugs/illicit-use-of-drugs/cannabis/

  Schoeler T, Monk A, Sami MB, et al. ‘Continued versus discontinued cannabis use in patients with psychosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.’ Lancet Psychiatry. 2016;3(3):215-225.

  Johanna Koskinen, Johanna Löhönen, Hannu Koponen, Matti Isohanni, Jouko Miettunen; Rate of Cannabis Use Disorders in Clinical Samples of Patients With Schizophrenia: A Meta-analysis. Schizophr Bull 2010; 36 (6): 1115-1130. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbp031

  Nunez, L. and M. Gurpegui, ‘Cannabis-induced psychosis: A cross-sectional comparison with acute schizophrenia.’ Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 2002. 105: p. 173–178.

  Favrat, B., et al., ‘Two cases of “cannabis acute psychosis” following the administration of oral cannabis.’ BMC Psychiatry, 2005. 5(17)

  D’Souza, D.C., et al., ‘Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol effects in schizophrenia: Implications for cognition, psychosis, and addiction’. Biological Psychiatry, 2005. 57: p. 594–608.

  Dean K and Murray RM (2005) ‘Environmental risk factors for psychosis’. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 7(1): 69-80.

  Veen, N.D., et al., ‘Cannabis use and age at onset of schizophrenia.’ American Journal of Psychiatry, 2004. 161: p. 501–506.

  McLaren J, Lemon J, Robins L and Mattick RP, Cannabis and mental health: put into context. Commonwealth of Australia, 2008, p.33.