"The bitter irony of Barnaby Joyce's "less worthy" comments."

This article was originally published in the Lifestyle section of The Sydney Morning Herald, on the 23rd of February 2018. Available here.

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This close to the 40th anniversary of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, you'd be hard-pressed to find something that elicits more glee than the prospect of seeing Cher in real-time. That's unless you count the brilliant schadenfraude accompanying the epic tale of Australia's most famous baby daddy: the boot-avoiding, bonk ban-inspiring former Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce.

On Wednesday night, Joyce and his partner, Vikki Campion gave their first interview since their political infidelities went global; from the comfort of Joyce's "bachelor pad", to Fairfax Media.

It was everything you'd expect from the sentient potato: He resented how questions of his personal life had shifted from "inquiry to malice". He loathed any inference that his love child would be "less worthy than other children", and abhorred the idea that said youth would grow up as a "public display". Talk of his secondary relationship while Campion worked with Senator Matt Canavan, was a case of "don't ask, don't tell", he said.

It's one thing to see a politician with a track record of opposing LGBTI rights for traditionalist reasons cop it after violating binding matrimony. But when said pollie makes a call for kindness – after subjecting countless Australian citizens to pain and suffering in the name of the same-sex marriage postal survey, and then refusing to vote on the subsequently laid-out bill at all – you wonder if the universe has a sense of irony.

Joyce, who stepped down as deputy prime minister on Friday, wasn't too worried about discussions moving from "inquiry to malice", when the postal vote debate shifted from casual questioning – to full-blown hate speech, as the laws against malicious campaigning were struck out. Where was his misery-laden concern, when homophobic posters were hurled about Australian city streets, and religious-based lobbying groups pushed patently false rhetoric about the nature of same-sex marriage law?

Of course, Joyce won't have to worry about his child being seen as "less worthy" than other children, because he'll be able to grant the fifth a luxe lifestyle courtesy of his parliamentary pension dollars – plus benefits.

But the same couldn't be said for the countless LGBTI youths he was wilfully complicit in subjecting to vitriol, when schoolyard bigots were given license to rain down pain on innocent teens; those far too young to marry, but still old enough to know which way their heart points. And don't bullies know it. This is to say nothing of the children of same sex couples, who were doubtless made to feel less-worthy while one of the key arguments of the No Campaign – that children do better with heterosexual parents – was raised continuously despite all evidence to the contrary.

Unfortunately, the Joycian proverb of, "Thou shalt not subject thine spawn to public scrutiny", had already been violated – by Joyce himself. At the thoughtless expense of queer children, who already deal with mental health issues at higher rates than their cisgender, heterosexual peers.

We saw LGBTI teens call for help at unprecedentedly high levels, all because our elected officials chose to ignore the opinion of the majority: that same-sex marriage is a long-withheld right, deserving of being enshrined in law. Because the children of politicians are apparently more valuable, their livelihoods more deserving of being defended, than young gay teens already suffering through a crisis of identity.

And perhaps Joyce's most stunning faux pas, was when he uttered the phrase "don't ask, don't tell", in explaining the justification for his relationship not being discussed.

From another, this could be seen as a thoughtless invocation. But from the now-former leader of the Nationals, bringing to mind the United States' since-repealed discriminatory policy that disallowed gays, bisexuals and lesbians from military service, is too significant a coincidence. Where Joyce desires his relationships be met with indifference so that he can continue to serve his constituents, others have for decades wished the same – so that they can continue to serve their country.

If I sound hateful, it's not due to a lack of compassion. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I'm sure that Joyce cares for all his children, and I firmly believe Campion doesn't deserve the flak that I've seen her cop from more unscrupulous commentators in the media.

But Joyce is a politician who, along with other members of his party and the government in power, neglected the wellbeing of their own citizens in the interest of flexing their legislative and ideological muscle. The LGBTI community have dealt with this for decades, in differing strokes, from less savoury humans, who respond to criticism not with press conferences – but with fists.

And when you're a homosexual, one who all too familiar with darker days of wishing specific people – senators, even – would relent from using powers beyond yours to invalidate your relationships – you can't help but laugh.

So it's only fitting that before next weekend, when we celebrate the achievements of the LGBTI community, we also toast to those traditional anti-gay lawmakers who fell from grace into a pit of their own hypocrisy.

This 40th Annual Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, when you're mincing to Believe on Sydney's Oxford Street between one circuit party and the next: Pour one out for poor Barnaby.

"Find a way: What we can learn from Sally Field."

This article was originally published on the Lifestyle section of The Sydney Morning Herald, on the 21st of February 2018. Available here.

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We need to talk about Sally Field.

I know, I know; we've been talking about her for years. The Academy alone has gifted the 71-year-old actress and director with two Oscars, on top of the literally tens of other significant awards she's acquired in her sterling career.



Recently, Field made headlines when her son – 30-year-old Samuel Greisman, a writer and director with a jaw-line that makes me angry – made her aware of the figure skater via text. Field's response was to implore Griesman to pursue Rippon, effectively playing matchmaker, which, if you ask me, is perfectly understandable, because they clearly don't call them figure skaters for nothing.More specifically: We need to talk about her, her son – and the jaw-droppingly talented Olympiad currently tearing up the rink in Pyeongchang, South Korea: 28-year-old figure skater Adam Rippon.

Griesman published the adorable exchange with mother-darling on his Twitter account – and the ensuing gay screaming could be heard worldwide.

If my mother were Sally Field – she's not, unfortunately – then any text message interaction reminiscent of her being an actual human person and not an Oscar winner would probably go viral, too. But it's not just the simple celeb-factor that I'm excited about. Because this seemingly innocuous interaction between mother and son bears so much more weight than you might think.

For years, to be a homosexual - one mired in the endless fog of a world that hates you for what you are – meant that love felt like a losing game. Moons would wax and wane, and yet The Gays remained static in their isolation: locked in a state of fear and self-loathing, terrified to fall for or express their love for members of the same gender.

Homophobia was the weight that held you down, endlessly hissing venom on how "You're not supposed to like him", or, "If people knew how you felt, they'd hate you". Your crushes weren't crushes; they were a curse. And never did you hate yourself more, than when you had to lie to the face of your family about not having one when you did.

But when mothers can dote on their gay sons and urge them to find love, it signals a shift from all that. We become further distanced from our tormented past; those generations of gay youth so secretive about their love, freed at last. And when that mother is Sally-f--ing-Field, doubtless an international icon, the impact of that freedom is amplified.

Far from the more personal significance it bears for families, it also signals an extremely important change when it comes to gay youth and their icons. While it's obvious that Griesman admires Rippon for more than just his routines – and I don't blame him because Jesus Christ on high – there are elements to Rippon's sudden fame that render him more remarkable than just being damn skilled in his skates.

Rippon is the first openly gay Olympic figure skater to grace the world stage, as well as being the first openly gay male athlete to win a medal at the Winter Olympics - and he's taken both these facts as nothing short of an immense responsibility. He's also unrelentingly been what a more conservative commentator might call a queen.

This means that he's not just the unrequited desire of more than one generation of homosexual - but he's the clever, steadfast and intensely political dreamboat of young queers everywhere. We're seeing before our gawking eyes an example of unapologetic queerness being elevated to famous athlete status, and it's opening the door for many young men – not just Griesman – to openly and just as unapologetically thirst.

But can the same be said in our sunburnt country? Do gay teens – or gay twenty-somethings, or thirty-somethings, and so on – have politically and socially conscious gay Australian athletes playing our favourite sports, over which to lose their minds?

We kind of don't.

Australia has always had a very particular "Aussie battler", "yeah-the-boys" culture, with our dusty cricket matches and the brutal machismo of AFL football . In fact, I can't think of a gay Australian cricketer on the field today, and the words "out gay footballer" are reserved only for the retired.

That's not counting Ian Thorpe, one of our most famous Olympiads, who came out in 2014 after years of media speculation. Thorpe is an undeniable Australian icon. But he also spent years in the closet even after his retirement, impeded only by question marks of plausibility rather than the harsh scrutiny of reality, effectively lessening a more homophobic media lens. That sets him apart from athletes like Rippon, who live day-to-day in the current and far more unrelenting spotlight.

In this country, our sun-kissed LGBTI larrikins are cursed almost twice over with the same burden of any other gay youth: you can't express love, let alone love for the same gender. And if you do, expect to be harangued by the more "bogan" among you. Yet this nation has always done a good job of looking elsewhere for inspiration, being the lucky last to implement marriage equality.

Which is why Sally Field and her laughter-inspiring family interactions represent a necessary – and particularly maternal – change to societal attitudes Western-worldwide; many of which Australia desperately needs to adopt.

If we're to liberate boys from the toxic masculinity that inhibits sons from gabbing to their parents about their boy-crushes, and if we're to ever see our own AFL athletes and cricketers leave the closet – that our boys (and girls) will freely dote on, then we require more mothers like Field to usher them into wedlock, and or at least hope of romantic bliss.

So as fetching as you are, Mr. Griesman, Son-of-Field: Adam Rippon is my future husband. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop ogling him now.

"People called my rape divine justice."

This article was originally published on News.com.au, on February 19th 2018. Available online here.

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THE first time I tried to write this piece, it sounded like the hysterical screaming of a Hollywood thriller script. Then a voice in my head said, “What would your grandmother think?” The second time, I tried to “make it funny”, but I came off sounding dishonest.

I don’t want to sound dishonest, though. I want you to know that I’m serious. Because this isn’t misery porn: This is rape.

I was an addict looking for a hit in an apartment with someone who could give me what I thought I wanted: Dissociation from reality. That’s how I met him.

But when the drugs he gave me sent me to the brink of unconsciousness, and every groan or pained writhing on his couch was met with him telling me to “Shut the f**k up”, I could hear an inner voice telling me that something wasn’t right.

It was only when they began to wear off — what acts he performed to my barely-conscious body for his own pleasure I could hardly contemplate — that I started to realise what kind of place I was in.

The front door was barricaded shut with heavy boxes; all perceivable cracks covered with gaffer tape. From beneath a lampshade gazed a webcam, staring down at me, lights blinking.

And he was standing in the corner of the room with a sharp tool in hand, hacking away at the drywall. When I would rise and stumble to his kitchen sink, trying hard not to vomit, he would whip around with a sharp intensity and hiss to “Sit the f**k down”. The look on his face was that of pure murder. When I looked down, I saw sheets stained red.

He was completely psychotic. To him, there were spies in the walls. Suddenly I was looking at the face of someone who could be my murderer.

I don’t know how long he kept me there. All I have to go off are the time stamps of text messages that read: “Call the police and send them to this apartment. Someone is going to die here today.” And the videos — almost farcical in nature, taken on my phone, depicting a man in a blue thong decimating his own apartment walls — that serve to validate the experience.

Brandon Cook admits he stopped co-operating with police after the assault as he was too traumatised at the time to talk about it.Source:Supplied

What he did put me in the hospital. I am loath to recall how I escaped his apartment — how hard I had to pretend — because it makes me ashamed. What I do know is that police and paramedics found me on the ground outside of a 7/11, openly sobbing.

He had struck fear into my heart and used me for his sexual pleasure. I had been too afraid to say no, let alone adequately consent. He’d broken me.

The following 24 hours comprised of a rape kit, multiple statements made to numerous detectives, and no shortage of shame and self-hatred. Not the kind that creeps in when you’re standing on a train platform, beckoning you to jump — but the shame that screams loudly in your ear, until all you can do to keep on walking is to pretend that you aren’t really there at all.

I remember being wheeled into emergency, my body actively twitching uncomfortably from the substances setting my synapses wild. I would laugh and say, “I’m just happy to have a good reason to be in emergency for once.” Happy to be a junkie with a problem that society “deemed valid”.

At one point I leaned over to a police officer — one of the women who stayed with me the entire time — and whispered deliriously, “Although, I was on drugs. Which means I asked for it, you know?”

It’s taken me until now to realise that I hadn’t been “held hostage”. Not really. Being held hostage denotes a value apparent to the hostage-taker — of which I had none. I had been taken in, dosed up, used and abused — and then left on the side of a road to die. That f**ks with a person.

It should come as no surprise that later, when I received a letter from the police saying that they wouldn’t investigate my case without my full presence and co-operation, I was furious.

A reasonable person might deem it logical that the authorities couldn’t investigate a crime without the involvement of the complainant. But this case did not involve reasonable people.

I had been held against my will; violated, abused and made to be afraid. I’d done everything that they’d asked for — everything that was expected of me — and still they wanted more. More, more, more.

So I did what many millennials are ought to do — righteously, in the era of #MeToo and #TimesUp — and publicised my outrage at the letter on social media.

The response was scathing and typical: I was told to “play the victim a bit less”, accused of being out to ruin someone’s life, and called a compulsive liar by virtue of being a drug addict (as if this stereotype wasn’t already evident to me). It was even suggested that my rape was divine justice.

Brandon was shocked at the response the post about his experience received on Facebook.Source:Supplied

And yet they didn’t know what happened to me. I had only shared “something horrible” — no specific details. I wasn’t even given the benefit of the doubt.

I wonder, sometimes, if my story would have held weight in the larger #MeToo movement. As a male survivor, I can’t imagine feeling understood, let alone feeling solidarity, with my own gender.

Yet I see the #MeToo movement, and so badly want to raise my own voice. I want to feel included, supported and to have my trauma recognised, but it isn’t.

Maybe it’s because men refuse to allow other men to identify as survivors. Or maybe this is a reflection of how #MeToo has yet to tackle laziness in its own efforts: an unwillingness to accommodate all survivors of abuse. It’s the worst club you could want admission to, but to those who aren’t in it, it’s all the support and understanding in the world.

Many social media users blasted him for not co-operating with police.Source:Supplied

Either way, men are so conditioned to keep their anguish to themselves, that when we fall victim to sex crimes, patriarchal strangleholds tell us we can’t ever reach out for fear of being seen as less than what society demands.

And when we’re retraumatised — like I was so many times, and like it was commanded of me — it feels almost grossly novel. We have no framework to ease our pain, and all we can do is hide.

Society constantly asks us to revisit our trauma, no matter how close it brings us to the edge. But maybe, someday, we will have the strength to ask for more.

Comments questioned whether Brandon was completely making the story up.Source:Supplied

When I was in hospital on that day, I called someone — more than a friend — and begged that he be by my side. He came without hesitation, and held me in my hospital bed, while a detective asked — yet again — for details of the incident.

When the detective left, he looked down — and he saw me. He saw me. His eyes were all warmth and comfort, like he was seeing something special for the first time. And all he said was all I needed to hear.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

I wept. Not only because I realised that I could love this man. But for a moment, the trauma, the pain, the judgment and the fear, were gone.

I was finally safe.

"I Want To Be Sexy"

This piece was originally published on the website of 56 Dean St, Europe's busiest sexual health clinic, as part of their wellbeing programme. Available online here.

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All I want is to be the sexiest lad in all the lands.

It’s why my jockstrap collection is growing. It’s why every few months I pick up some weights in an attempt to look less like a twink, only to put them down again in a huffing sweat after a solid five minutes. It’s why my previous point was actually extremely generous.

It’s also why I’ve taken gay sex drugs.

I want it because it feels essential. I want it because in the discotheques with their smoky hazes and bass-laden beats thumping in sync with strobes, I see sweat and musculature and eyes winking, and I’ve learned – been encultured – to salivate. I want it because even in our progressive microcosm of the modern world, being #insta famous or fit or hunk or daddy is a fantastical dream. It’s all so beautiful that it feels a stark ludicrosity I ever deigned to want for more. Yet I’m without.

But when I’m buried deep in the inhaled fumes of a drug like meth – I am sexy. I am sexiness.

I writhe and twist and twirl and I’m that guy you wish you were and you’re in me and it’s painless and exciting and filthy and fun. You look up and your lids flutter because I’m that good and I’m that hot and I’m oscillating between pleasure and lust and wondering how I even got you naked in my bed.

For a brief period, I reclaim my sexiness. For a while, I am the Adonis, no matter how twink reality is. I have what I want.

I want it because you want it, pressed against your body in the early hours. I want it because I wonder if I’ll ever be lovable – be loved – without it. I want it because though we push back against the market of unattainability, the “porn star” with his body and biceps and backside is still the peak of the gay pecking order – and anything more, like our activism and intellectualism, is somehow novel.

And sometimes I want it because it was taken from me.

Sexiness robbed by blindly clawing hands, shredding humanity and empathy from mere fuckable object in the mist of a sauna. Or drained from the mind of a boy who gazed into the eyes of the man he is somehow supposed to be – only to be viciously one-starred by his leering goal leaning up on the bar. Or held down and stamped out by a creature in a bed who refuses to take no for an answer.

Sometimes I want it because it feels present in the man I once was: before I knew about body goals, fitspo, societal expectations and porn. Before strangers, friends and lovers-turned-monsters vanquished him.

And when life turns to tumult, I feel the gay-shame and the sorrow and my past innocence bleeding from my very skin. I feel how very far from the insta-fit beautiful-Adonis-bod I am. Not sexy; never was.

So I become feverishly scratching hands, tearing innocence from hollow physicality in the fog of a sauna. I become the asshole in the nightclub corner swiping left on a boy who just wants to hold my hand. If I am so horrible (and I can be, and I’m sorry) I become the terrible thing in a bed that cannot hear no – until I can, and I’m horrified of my own hands.

And when I’m drowning in shame, I take a few drops of fantasy.

I scroll and swipe and fear for my future, and I’m desperate and searching for connection, in a too-cruel vapid world that wants me ripped and toned and straight. You look down at me and I’m remorseful and pained and your eyes darken because I’m that close to your home, shaking dangerously on rotten stilts, and you’re wondering if you’ll ever be sexy – or just happy – without stimulants.

For a brief period, I wallow in my sorrow. I douse the flame of my pain in liquid ecstasy.

Because there is a skeleton of whom I once was lying dusty under my skin, and I’ve twisted my face to grotesque tears trying to rip it out. So hard that I never see the honest-to-God truth that my culture of sexiness ignores.

I (you) am (are) perfectly good enough.

Just the way we are.

"I don't know why they do shit like ice. Fucking junkies."

Piece published with Overland Journal, on the 27th of November 2017, available here.

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I’ve never resonated with how Australia depicts the addict.

To news media crews, I’m a disturbing outburst on a suburban street by a shark-toothed ex-con. More sensitively, I’m a parent clutching their children as authorities threaten to take them away – if only I’d clean up. I’m that word that hangs on the air like an echo whenever it’s uttered – ‘junkie’.

As a gay man, I can’t see myself in any of those images. I never met crystal meth through hard-knock times on the block with some sort of larrikin crew, nor through a friend-of-a-friend in a shady-looking rental home.

No. I met her as Tina – the party girl.

When you’re doing your Sunday morning shop, she’s in the apartment just overhead, being passed around by a group of gay men in various states of undress. She’s in every rainbow neighbourhood of every big city, everywhere. She’ll make your sex better and your fun wilder; make you want to fuck for days and days. And maybe, if you need it, she’ll make your shame go away.

The people Tina touches are like no ‘junkie’ I’ve ever seen or met. That’s because of how she snakes into their lives: through sex parties and the promise of fun, bringing relief from difficult decades of turmoil, gay bashings and the AIDS crisis. The people she touches are professionals and worldly figures; artists, teachers and industry leaders, who hide leather harnesses under dress shirts and get weird on the weekends – not ‘junkies’.

And yet those Australian-made images – those shark teeth, that blind rage, the screaming disenfranchised – penetrate my community even still.

The other night I was on Scruff – one of our gay ‘dating’ apps – talking to a man with a body so nice it would make even I – a sentient blob – want to go to the gym. The conversation turned to gay sex and drugs.

‘I don’t know why they do shit like ice. Fucking junkies’ he ranted of his own ‘Won’t ever touch the stuff. I’m a critical care nurse, so I’ve seen what it does to people.’

I didn’t have the heart to tell him one of the people I’ve spent the most time partying with – and had the most intense experiences with on ice – was also,  a nurse.

A nurse with a playroom in the basement. Mirror on the ceiling,  giant leather sling and cabinets filled with the necessary materials for safe drug use; needles, sterile water and alcohol swabs. He was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, spending his life caring for others.

And he sure as hell was no junkie.

Having the same media-fostered cultural awareness, you’d be forgiven for thinking exactly like Mr. Goodbody. He’s been struck by the scandal of it all – the current affair post-six o’clock news – bitten by the shark teeth.

The depictions on our screens are so often sensationalist.  They imbue addicts with violent caricature so outrageous that sometimes we forget we’re looking at real-life human beings. Even addicts like myself, when met with any one of these broadcast examples, can be heard whispering aloud, ‘I never want to be like that’.

It’s not uncommon for gay men on Tina to deny the notion that they’ll ever be an addict, let alone an addict ‘like that’. ‘It’s for pleasure’, taken ‘recreationally’, declared, even as liquored nights out lose their allure to after-parties spent twirling with Tina. They stand their ground and claim total control, as café brunches start to pale next to weekends spent indoors.

All the while raging against concern from loved ones, looking upon tired eyes in a bathroom mirror come Monday or Tuesday morning. They shut themselves inside a bathroom stall, reach into the bag, and think; ‘Just a little bit… Just to get my energy up.’

The patterns of addiction and substance misuse might not look the same for gay people as they do for straights. Where ice binges lead to violence, our ‘party-and-play’ leads to ‘tweaked-out twinks’. Where ice users are perceived as belligerent no-hopers, our own recreational, pleasurable use, comes defended by the community as part of how we’ve grappled with societal pain. To point out the risks in any meaningful way sees you accused of trying to ‘break the community'; of belittling coping mechanisms.

And yet for every battler who weathered homophobic violence, shame and stigma, who freed his pain with pills popped and through dancing the night away, there’s another out there, buried under Tina’s thumb. He’s trudging through desperate Sundays, between uniform apartment buildings seeking chemical frisson. He’s telling himself that he’s there for the sex, when really he’s eyeing off the drugs.

If you don’t look like a ‘junkie’ – if you aren’t shark-toothed and agitated like those terrors on the television – you might not recognise the patterns of your pain and if your media shows you nothing but ‘junkie’ violence in the dismal outer suburbs, your friends and family sneering at the screen, you might not want to identify them, either.

Which is why this problem goes so unheard of – community anguish well-hidden – and it’s why the medical response in this country is as thin as it is ignorant.

I spent a weekend in bed with a pretty boy, in the sparsely furnished walls of his apartment. We were talking about the drugs we were just about to do – our relationship with Tina.

‘I earn probably two thousand dollars a week’ he said. ‘And honestly? Most of it goes on Tina. God! I’m such a junkie.’

And then he laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed.

But it wasn’t the laughter of the truly amused.

It was the pained cackle of someone trying to convince you of their distance from a devil that they refuse to face. It was a laugh that said, ‘I’ll never be like that.’

Yet despite its best efforts, it murmured: ‘I am. I truly fucking am.’

I loved him raw for those tens of hours, two fogged-up miscreants dancing with Tina. Then I left down his flights of stairs, taking off for the homestead, passers-by none the wiser. I might do so again next weekend.

And when I get home in the end, bleary-eyed and days sleepless, I will turn on my television. I will see those shark-toothed howlers – and sigh. Because my own are shaped a bit differently, my edges sharp in different ways.

Yet they still bite and my screams still hurt my throat.

"I like photography, craft beer, ogling boys – and sadly, crystal meth"

This piece was originally published on BodyAndSoul.com.au, on September 14th 2017. Available here.

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Picture: Supplied. Brandon Cook.

You know that feeling when you’re watching television, and there’s a news segment broadcasting something so insufferably inaccurate that all you can do is stare?

Here’s your old-school uncle bemoaning those bloody millennials or the gal down the road talking marriage equality – and how she’s terrified of homosexuals forcing her to divorce. This is Middle Australia. They wear cargoes and muddied singlets, and live off diets of Lean Cuisine, the fear of Islam, and aggressive suburban tension. They’re also you.

Quite frankly: Who are these people, and who insisted they pretend to represent you?

I get that a lot. Only I don’t cry when I see a Bintang, nor when I spot Kath & Kim come to life. I get it when I hear people talk about addicts. Sorry, I mean “junkies”.

I’m Brandon Cook: twenty-four. I like photography, craft beer, ogling boys on transit – and sadly, crystal meth. And yes, I do want to stop.

I’m one of your “junkies”. Nobody abused me and I didn’t fall into it after hard times. I got hooked when a hot guy asked me to try it, and I didn’t say no because he was just that hot. Go ahead and call me stupid; I’m getting it tattooed on my lower back anyway.

Public figures have a habit of perpetuating seriously bad ideas about addicts. Even people in recovery and rehab tend to be shown as barely-reformed hoodlums.

So call it a lesson from someone in recovery, or tragic advice from Dolly Doctor for deviants – because I’m here to correct some myths around addiction. If stigma kills, then these notions twist the knife.

Not all addicts recover the same way

Many see the only way to live as in complete abstinence. But in most cases, it’s unrealistic. Some people can manage it – but many will use again. Abstinence can tint the world in nightmarish potential for slipping up.

I tried abstinence for two years. And I slipped up a lot. It made me hate myself because it reminded me of what I was: a “junkie”. Then I went to rehab, where I forgave my mistakes, and accepted any future failures.

Some addicts take years to quit, and slip-ups are part of the journey. But some addicts see society shaking their heads, and in their shame, go on to overdose and die.

Picture: Supplied. Brandon Cook.Source:BodyAndSoul

Addiction isn’t selfish

Claiming otherwise ignores that there are biological factors at play that assist in strengthening it, no matter someone’s resistance.

You can argue that nobody put the pipe in my hand; that I did it to myself. And I’d have the strength of character to say you were right.

And yet you’d be pretending that you yourself have never felt the effects of peer pressure, or haven’t been curious about pleasure in all its insidious forms.

The difference between my curiosity and yours is that someone put the object in my hand, and I caved. That’s it. Everything that happened afterwards is neurochemistry. Not a selfish act that I, or anyone, deserves.

We’re not all violent felons

If I had a dollar every time someone didn’t believe I’m “one of those”, since I’m clearly cute as a button and wouldn’t hurt a fly, I could afford the cost of private rehab.

Australia depicts addicts as violent and impoverished. These people exist and are worthy of support. But they’re also not my truth. They’re just one of many.

If I told you that I knew addicts who ran prominent NGOs; who were politicians and figures in media; whose day job was to maintain human life, would your perception of addiction change? I hope so. Which brings me to my last point...

Anyone can be an addict

This is the part where you hold your children closer, and it’s also where I’ll finish up.

The week after I first tried ice, I went to my doctor to ask for help, because already I foresaw problems. Yet even that anxious foresight couldn’t prevent my future.

Addiction doesn’t know class. It isn’t concerned with race or prestige. It just grips onto something in your life – hardship, mental health, or my self-image – and grows and grows. Then, before you have time to react, it’s a problem all its own. It can break your doctor or your neighbour, and even your son.

Untangling addiction means seeing it as the disease it is, not as a symbol of socioeconomic status. Helping addicts means seeing complex humans and not shock-news. It might be offering them realistic aid, no matter how debated.

When we can nail that, maybe I’ll be able to watch the news without cringing. Because I’ll finally feel represented – as a person suffering an illness that unites just as it harms. Not a “junkie”. That’ll be a good day.

If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, mental ill health or needs help, call Lifelineon 131 114, Beyondblue on 1300 22 4636 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800. In an emergency, call 000. For a correct treatment plan, book an appointment with your GP.

For more information on mental health and treatment options, visit Beyond Blue, Black Dog Institute, Lifeline, RUOK or Headspace.