Coma was drug addict’s wake-up call

Seven days in a coma was the wake-up call Molly needed to break her methamphetamine addiction.

For 10 years Molly, 26, succumbed to the emotional crutch of the stimulant.

At the peak of her addiction Molly was consuming about a gram or more a day with a street value of $1000.

She began her drug use at 14 with cannabis and dexamphetamine until, at aged 16, she transgressed to meth.

“I had stages where I was really bad, stages where I was not so bad, stages where I wouldn’t use at all and then stages where I was completely out of control,” Molly said.

“I couldn’t see myself changing because I didn’t see that I had a problem so it’s hard to change anything if you don’t see you have a problem with it.

“I wouldn’t say that I was functional but I thought I was.”

Like many other addicts, Molly was able to maintain her addiction by dealing. This led her into a vicious cycle where she was constantly surrounded by the drug and temptation.

“I’d get up every morning and I’d have a pipe or I hadn’t slept at all,” she said.

“And because my partner dealt as well, I never had to spend a dollar.”

“And it’s really hard (when you quit) because you begin to realise the people that trigger you; you wish didn’t because you want them in your life so you’ve got to avoid those people and it’s hard.”

This on-and-off abuse continueduntil an asthmatic attack left Molly fighting for her life.

“I was just at home and I’d been using every day for a long time so I couldn’t say whether I had been up for a few days or not but I just started having difficulty breathing,” she said.

“I was having my puffer and it was just not doing anything, it got worse and worse really quickly.”

After being taken to the Katanning Hospital Molly was incubated and flown to Fiona Stanley Hospital. “The second day I was in my coma they said to my mum they can’t say if I’m going to get better... I almost died a few times while I was in my coma so I was really lucky,” she said.

”It is still heartbreaking for me that I put her through that.”

However, the coma was the wake-up call Molly needed.

“I just woke up and I knew, I just knew that was the reason I was in a coma, that’s what had put me there,” she said.

“I just said to Mum, Mum send me to rehab.’

“I said ‘get me into rehab right now, as soon as I get out of this hospital I need to go to rehab because if you don’t I’m going to go and use’.”

Now, eight months clean Molly said she owed her life to Ice Breakers.

”You are not wrapped up in cotton wool ... you’re out in the community still, you’ve got all those factors that will set you off but you’ve been given those skills and you’ve been given somewhere to go,” she said.