Lemlei Le Velle was tied up, a knife held to her throat and injected with heroin by her addict boyfriend.
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That horrific incident led to a harrowing drug addiction that lasted for more than 15 years.
The university graduate had a high-flying corporate life as a successful real estate agent and owned two investment properties when her world plunged into a haze of heroin and then ice addictions.
That first injection led to her losing everything she had worked hard for, but after 15 years she emerged drug-free and ready to make an impact on the world. She tells her story not only to other addicts but to emergency service workers and school students.
Ms La Velle will be in Warrnambool on Thursday to speak at the Western Region Alcohol and Drug community forum about a proposed residential rehabilitation centre called The Lookout.
WRAD has submitted plans to Warrnambool City Council to operate a 20-bed facility from a property at Dennington. South-west police have backed the need for a centre as another plank in the fight against alcohol and drug-related crime.
Ms Le Velle said she would not have kicked her addiction without undertaking a residential rehabilitation program.
“From what I’ve experienced in regional areas there is a lot less support, education and understanding of what rehab is and what it entails,” she said.
“For me personally and for a lot of people that I’ve been through rehab with, it has been a life-saver. A lot of us wouldn't be here without having those places to go and learn how to get better. Having a facility will give people some sort of hope. That’s why I put my name forward to talk. It’s so vital and so important for everyone to be able to have access should they want it or should they need it.”
Ms Le Velle said sometimes people didn’t have a choice in taking drugs.
“He (her boyfriend) forced me to use it,” she said.
“I was tied up and a knife held to my throat. That was my introduction. I think it’s really important that people understand it’s not always gateways that get people into drugs. Sometimes people get into situations where it’s not a pleasant experience. Sadly I was a heroin addict before I was a smoker. I went from heroin to ice and then had a heavy ice addiction for 15 years.”
She said ice had been “the answer to my everything”.
“It made me feel normal and like I could function in society,” she said. “When my use started getting really heavy it was always spiked by an incident or an event that happened.”
She said in the final years of her drug use she was injecting ice up to eight times a day and smoking in between.
“I didn’t think I had a problem,” she said.
“I thought what I was doing was completely normal. My work completely suffered. I lost the staff that I had, I lost a lot of my clients, I lost my two investment properties, I kept getting very sick and I still didn’t recognise that I had any issues.”
She said she didn’t realise how much she had lost until she entered rehabilitation.
“A lot of people with drug addiction struggle with the reality that they have an addiction, or they think they can control it,” she said.
Ms Le Velle said learning about her own mental health helped her to recover.
“Learning about why I’d made particular decisions and how I’d become addicted so quickly helped me to recover, with medication and different therapies and strategies,” she said.
“I was not well when I went into residential rehab. I was in for over five months which is quite a long time, but it was what I needed.”
Ms Le Velle said addiction did not discriminate.
“It can definitely happen to anyone,” she said.
“There are so many people out in the world that do it and unfortunately with ice it’s quite easy, up to a point, to hide it because you are still functioning. It’s not like heroin when you go ‘on the nod’. A big thing comes from the stigma and not discriminating when people do realise they have a problem and they ask for help.
“We have got to look at that stigma and everyone should be able to ask for help without feeling they are the scum of the earth. You are not. I know I’m a good person with a good heart, but I’ve made some bad choices.”
When Ms Le Velle finished rehabilitation she started volunteering with animal rescue organisations fostering animals.
“From there I went back to university and I’m studying my diploma in mental health and drugs and alcohol,” she said.
She plans to complete her masters in addictive behaviours and she has also studied to be a peer worker.
“I do a lot of talks going around where I’m needed,” Ms Le Velle said.
“On the flip side, I talk to people at the drug court, paramedics and police giving them information on what they probably see quite frequently to give them a bit more education. It’s about trying to get people to understand the person behind the issue.”