Distanced from my whānau

INTERVIEWER: Tell me more about your family. You’re closest to your older brother? Tell me about the rest of them, your mum, your dad?
DAVE: My dad, he’s passed away now. He’s been dead for about nine years now. My mother’s from up north. We’ve got a pretty good relationship. In relation to what we’re doing now, I suppose I didn’t really destroy those relationships because I just ran away and locked all that off, you know? So I’ve got a pretty good relationship with my mum.

INTERVIEWER: You distanced yourself from your family.
DAVE: Yeah. Because I just didn’t want to hear it.
INTERVIEWER: What is it you didn’t want to hear?
DAVE: Just all the moaning.
INTERVIEWER: About?
DAVE: About all the stuff I did.

INTERVIEWER: Sounds like you were quite distanced from your family.
DAVE: Oh, it was easier for me to distance from that
INTERVIEWER: Because?
DAVE: Well then I wouldn’t have to address it. I don’t have to talk about it if it’s not being talked about!

INTERVIEWER: You spent a bit of time drinking with your family?
DAVE: Oh, they taught me how to drink.
INTERVIEWER: Your family taught you how to drink?
DAVE: Yeah. And then I turned into an adult and left home.
INTERVIEWER: So there were some good parts to that?
DAVE: Yeah, for sure. It’s not all bad.
INTERVIEWER: Not all bad. What were some of the less good things?
DAVE: Getting put in police cells to sober up, drink driving, crashing cars, being in car accidents with other drunk drivers, losing jobs, getting thrown out of moving cars.
INTERVIEWER: That sounds pretty serious.
DAVE: Yeah