I started to drink at a young age

I think maybe 14, 15. My mum and dad drink; my mum and my koro drink, my aunties and my uncles down the road drink, my older cousins drink. So it was like, “Oh well, you're doing it; I’ll do it too.”

We’d drink at a train station, abandoned house, parks, anywhere; anywhere we could drink, really. Right up until we found out I was pregnant with my son.

I was 17, 18. I already had my baby, I just couldn’t handle being a single parent. My only way to deal with it was to drink, that was the only remedy. I wasn’t gonna smoke or whatever; that was my baby, but I just thought, ‘Well, my parents drank with us. I'm sure me drinking with my son’s not gonna be a problem’. And so I did it, I drank every day. If I couldn’t get a money for a box I’d go and pawn something off, or go pawn off my son’s motorbike for a box, two boxes maybe. That was it. And that’s kind of what got my son taken off me in the beginning.

Sometimes I’d steal money from my sister on her pay day. I’d take her money out of her bank account, spend it on a box straight away before she could get the money off me. Every week, every pay day, someone’s pay day, “That’s us, get a box. Get us a box, I got us next week.” Come next week and, “Oh no, 'cause I got a box last week,” type of thing.

Now it’s, I don’t even drink; maybe a beer here and there, but yeah, I haven't had a drink for five or six months.