SYDNEY: He's like most of his friends. Enjoys sport, girls and video games. But 6 months ago, Damon found himself at rock bottom. His parents had divorced and the battle of his future was taking a toll. He found a girl and started hanging out in what he admits now were “dodgy” places. “I got into meth and everything seemed to spiral from there,” he told Bikyamasr.com as he shot hoops at a local playground near where his father lives in Sydney. He is one of many youths who have found themselves sucked into the drug culture at a young age, but for Damon, it was his father's own experience with drugs that helped him get out quicker than others. “My father really helped me when he noticed I would come home high. It was a real bonding experience for both of us as we both went through tough times,” he said of his father, Mike, who at 42-years-old believes he and his ex-wife needed to be there for Damon more often. If they had, he argued, “Damon might not have struggled like this and found himself in the darkness.” He knows all too well the dangers of drugs, having been addicted to cocaine when Damon was a young child for two years. “It is a painful process to deal with addiction and I hope that I was there for Damon as much as others were for me many years ago,” Mike told Bikyamasr.com as he tossed the ball back to his son. Damon admitted that his addiction overtook his daily life for months, saying he would go to his girlfriend's house, who was a first-year student at the time. He said they would get high and hang around together. “It's all we did for hours. We would just be there and do nothing. When we were high there was nothing else and it was our life,” he said. But then his father began to worry and slowly approached the topic of drugs with his son, telling his 18-year-old boy about his time struggling with addiction. He says he didn't push hard for details and laid low as his son struggled. Mike said that by allowing his son, along with his girlfriend Mary, to come to him, he was able to gain their trust and be of useful assistance. “If I had pushed them, I would have driven them away and nothing would have changed. Today, they are both going to university and doing things couples should be doing, but not the drugs,” he said. Damon and Mary are not unusual for their age, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has reported. According to their figures, one-quarter of Australian teenagers use marijuana during their teenage years, while some 15 percent have used illicit drugs at some point. Addiction is hard to overcome, but for Damon and Mary they were lucky. Mike pushed forward on showing them that they can go a different route and put the crystal behind them. “It is great to be sober and free of that. The urges still come around, but now Mary and I are focused on our lives and my father an be thanked,” said Damon. ** This is part of Bikyamasr.com's continued coverage of drug addiction across the globe. Check out The Needle series for more stories.
