Addiction

My Mother died with a needle in her Arm and a spoon on the floor. I spent 20 years trying not to become her.

I’m clean now…

I’m writing this because the offshore community doesn’t talk about this enough. Guys are dying because they think they’re alone. Because they think functional addiction isn’t real addiction. Because FIFO gives you a structure that lets you hide from yourself for years.

This is what that looked like for me.

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Part I: The Foundation

My mother lay on the floor with a needle hanging out of her arm and a spoon on the floor.

I was on the floor screaming. Six weeks old. Six weeks premature.

She was dead.

The monkey on her back since she was eighteen finally got the better of her.

Goa, India. 1985.

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My father was a Kiwi. She was Australian. He was the guy supplying all of Goa with weed and hash. That was the business. That was the life.

She OD’d. He panicked.

Took me and my brother, flew us to New Zealand, dropped us at his sister’s house, and disappeared.

We didn’t see him for five years.

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He started another life somewhere else. Had another kid, a daughter, Dutch mother, different country. Tried to get his shit together. Stop dealing. Be a father to someone.

When I was five, he came back.

Nobody told me he was my dad. I thought my aunt and uncle were my parents. They were trying to adopt me. I didn’t know. I was just a kid who liked fishing and didn’t ask questions.

He showed up at family events. Important guy. Everyone treated him like he mattered. I felt drawn to him, but didn’t know why. I just wanted to be near him.

The one memory I have is him standing at my grandmother’s pool during a big family gathering. I’m standing there, five years old, confused about why this man matters so much, why I want to be close to him.

Then he left again.

Said he had one more job to do. One more run. India to Afghanistan. Fill the bus with 300kg of weed and hash. Drive it back. Big payday. Then he’d be done.

Then he crashed.

Or someone crashed him. Doesn’t matter.

They took him to a hospital. Public holiday in India. Skeleton crew.

He bled out on the table, waiting for someone to give a shit.

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When I was fifteen, my aunt decided I was ready.

Ready for what, I didn’t know. She sat me down, put a videotape in the VCR, and said: “This is your father’s cremation. You should see it.”

Then she left the room.

I watched it once.

I’ve never watched it again.

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There’s no makeup in a traditional Hindu cremation. No mortician’s art. No pretending. Just a bloated corpse on a pile of wood.

My father’s body, swollen from three days in the Indian heat, wrapped in white cloth already soaked through with fluid. They pour ghee over him. Clarified butter. Accelerant. The flames catch fast.

Skin bubbles. Fat renders.

The smell—burning meat mixed with sandalwood—fills the frame.

The camera doesn’t look away. Neither did I.

You watch your father melt once.

That’s it.

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My aunt said it was closure.

I don’t know what it was.

That’s the foundation.

Both my parents died because of drugs. Heroin. Dealing. Addiction. Running.

I spent the next twenty years trying not to become them.

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Part II: The Pattern

Age 18. Navy.

Fresh slate. Kid. Not a drinker. Never touched drugs. Naive as hell.

The Navy changed that fast.

Not because they forced me. Because fitting in mattered. And when you’re eighteen, on a ship, junior seaman trying to prove you belong, fitting in means drinking. And if you’re not into drinking, it means other things.

I’m not blaming the military for that. Maybe it would’ve happened anyway. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, formative years, peer pressure, bad decisions. But that’s where it happened for me.

And the military amplifies it. Feast or famine. You’re away for months. Then you get a short window home. And in that window, you make up for lost time. You go hard. You eat fast. You drink fast. You do everything fast because the clock is always running and the ship leaves again.

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The first time was a nightclub. Age nineteen.

Someone handed me a pill. Ecstasy. Said it’d be better than drinking.

They were right.

Drinking just put me to sleep. Made me slow. This was different. Sharper. More fun.

I had a great time.

And I kept having a great time. Because when you meet the right group of people, the ones who party, the ones who know where to get what, you become everybody’s favorite guy. The one who makes things happen.

That’s what was happening in the military at the time.

Fit in or fuck off.

I fit in.

No one forced me. I did it willingly. And for a long time, it was fine.

Until it wasn’t.

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Gulf deployment. Iraq War.

Came home with money, six months of tension still in my body, and no plan except to not think about it.

I went a little crazy.

Started using harder stuff. Cocaine. MDMA. Whatever was around. I told myself it was just partying. Just blowing off steam. Just what everyone does.

But I couldn’t stop.

There was something eating at me. I didn’t know what. Didn’t want to know. Just wanted it to shut up.

So I went AWOL. Ran from the Navy. Ran offshore.

That didn’t help. Now I had more money. More time off. Same problems. Worse access.

So I packed everything, moved to Melbourne, on the other side of the country, and tried to start over.

That worked for a few years. Saved me from the hardest stuff.

But it didn’t fix anything. Just delayed it.

Because wherever you go, there you are.

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Part III: The Mirror

There was a period where it got bad.

Not all at once. Progressively. Things slipping, control eroding, excuses piling up.

“It’s just here and there.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“I’m functional. I work. I provide. I’m a good dad.”

All true. And all bullshit.

I found myself standing in front of mirrors, sick of the person looking back.

My kids never saw me intoxicated. Not once. I was careful about that. They didn’t know that side of me.

But I knew.

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I’ll tell you what it looked like.

Kids’ voices in the other room. Wife asking them to clean up. Normal evening. Normal life.

Sneaking off to the bedroom. Close the door. Lock it.

Everything ready. Kit laid out.

Chopping lines with my credit card. Commonwealth Bank Platinum. Using it to cut lines on my wife’s dresser mirror. The one she uses for makeup.

Leaning down. Snorting. Feeling the drip hit the back of my throat, that gasoline-chemical taste, the numbness spreading.

Clearing my nose with my sleeve.

Looking up.

And there I was.

Forty-two years old. Married. Two kids. Offshore driller pulling good money. Snorting coke off my wife’s mirror while my nine-year-old asked his mum where Daddy went.

This is what winning looks like.

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The math was brutal.

I was spending more on the problem than I was on the solution. Way more.

And that’s before you factor in the cost nobody bills you for. Your wife’s resentment (nothing upfront, everything later), your kids’ confusion (priceless, in the worst way), the person in the mirror you don’t recognise (no refunds, no exchanges).

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I didn’t want to be that person anymore.

I didn’t want my kids to know me as that person.

I didn’t want to look in the mirror and see my mother. My father.

The pattern I swore I’d break.

But there I was.

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Part IV: The FIFO Paradox

Here’s the question I wrestled with: Does FIFO save you or enable you?

The case for saving:

Four weeks offshore is forced sobriety. Totally dry rig. No alcohol. No drugs. No choice.

It’s a rehab facility that pays six figures.

For four weeks, your body has no option but to detox. Reset. Get clean.

I met guys who’d been sober for years because of FIFO. Guys who knew they couldn’t trust themselves at home, so they worked rotations that kept them offshore longer than they were onshore. 28-and-14. 42-and-21. Whatever it took to minimize the damage.

The rig saved them. Gave them structure. Forced discipline they couldn’t maintain alone.

The case for enabling:

But here’s the other side:

You’re not fixing anything offshore. You’re just postponing it.

Because the second you step off that rig, the clock starts. And you’ve got four weeks to blow. Four weeks to make up for lost time. Four weeks of freedom after a month of forced control.

That’s not sobriety. That’s just structured bingeing.

And while you’re offshore, you’re not sober. You just switch vices.

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What addiction looks like offshore:

You can’t drink? Fine. The vice just changes shape.

The guy on steroids. Pinning testosterone in the cabin bathroom. Ordering from online pharmacies, shipped to PO boxes. Working out three hours a day not because he loved fitness but because he was convinced that if he got jacked enough, his wife would stop fucking her personal trainer.

Spoiler: she didn’t.

But he had 18-inch arms, so that was something.

The guy who ate when he was uncomfortable. Food as a coping mechanism. Late-night raids on the galley. Chocolate. Ice cream. Whatever was available. Gaining twenty kilos in six months. Not because the food was good, but because eating was the only thing that quieted the noise.

The guy gambling on his phone. Every day. Reading that 10-way multi into the weekend. Didn’t matter if he won or lost. It was the action he needed. The dopamine hit. The distraction from sitting with himself.

The guy who watched porn for hours. Not because he was horny. Because it was the only escape available. The only vice that didn’t require leaving the cabin or explaining yourself.

I wasn’t judging any of them.

I was all of them at different times.

Because the rig doesn’t cure addiction. It just forces you to choose a different drug.

And some drugs are quieter than others. Some look like discipline. Some look like health. Some look like productivity.

But underneath, it’s the same thing: we’re running from something.

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The FIFO lifestyle enables this.

Not intentionally. Not maliciously. Just structurally.

Because the rotation creates the perfect conditions for functional addiction. Four weeks forced clean. Four weeks to relapse. Repeat forever.

You can convince yourself you’re fine because you’re never using offshore. You’re productive. You’re employed. You show up for your shifts.

But the lifestyle doesn’t ask if you’re okay. It asks if you’re functional.

And as long as you can do the job, you’re functional enough.

The cycle continues. The rigs keep drilling. The roster keeps turning.

Nobody’s checking what happens in those four weeks at home. Nobody’s asking why you need the structure so badly. Nobody’s watching the progression from functional to dependent to broken.

They just need you to show up for your next swing.

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I wasn’t the guy who stumbled off the plane. I didn’t come home drunk or high. I was careful. My kids never saw me intoxicated.

But I knew that guy. We all do.

The one who hits the airport bar before the flight. The one who gets carried onto the plane by his crew. The one who stumbles through the door to a wife and kids who’ve been waiting a month, and the only memory they get is Dad half-passed out mumbling about how he “earned it.”

If that triggers you, good. It should.

Because that’s the feast-or-famine monster offshore creates. The guy who white-knuckles it for four weeks then explodes the second he’s home.

I wasn’t him.

But I was closer to him than I wanted to admit.

Because my version was quieter. Sneaking off to the bedroom. Locking the door. Looking at myself in the mirror with a rolled-up note in my hand.

Different method. Same problem.

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Part V: The Why

So why was I doing this?

Not the surface answer. Not “stress” or “work pressure” or “I like to party.”

The real why.

Maybe it was abandonment. Six weeks old when my mother died. Five years old when my father came back, and I didn’t know who he was. Fifteen years old, watching him melt on a funeral pyre and still not understanding what I’d lost.

Maybe it was identity. Trying to be the opposite of my parents, so hard that I became exactly like them, just with a better job and a nicer house.

Maybe it was just not wanting to sit with myself. Not wanting to be still. Not wanting to feel whatever the fuck was underneath the surface.

Because if I stopped moving, if I stopped staying busy, if I stopped working out and writing and photographing and planning the next thing, I had to sit there. And think. And feel.

And I didn’t know what happened then.

So I trained. I wrote. I worked. I stayed so busy that the question didn’t have room to breathe.

And when that wasn’t enough, I did a bump in the cupboard and told myself it was fine.

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Part VI: The Reckoning

I had to change.

What that looked like:

I hired a trainer. Not because I needed help with form. Because I needed accountability. Someone expecting me to show up. Someone who noticed when I didn’t.

I walked every day. Hit my steps. Cleared my head. Sometimes I talked into my phone. Sometimes I just shut up and walked.

I saw a therapist. DVA military programs, lucky to have it, would’ve paid for it myself if I didn’t. Working through the shit I’d been avoiding for twenty years.

And I had to change who I was to people.

That was the hardest part.

Because people knew me as the party guy. The guy who could source whatever you needed. The guy who was always down for a good time. The guy who made things fun.

That identity didn’t serve me anymore.

But changing it meant disappointing people. Losing friends. Being the guy who says no when everyone expects yes.

It meant writing this piece and putting it on a public forum knowing it might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.

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I look at my kids now and think: who do I want them to know I am?

I’m not perfect. Never claimed to be.

But I’m still here.

And that has to count for something.

My parents aren’t here. They’re ashes on the Ganges. They’re gone.

I’m not.

I’ve done better than my parents. That’s for sure. The bar was low, but I cleared it. I’m still here. I’m still trying.

Part of staying here was being honest. Admitting I was broken. Asking for help. Writing this piece, even though it scared the shit out of me.

Because if I didn’t break the cycle, my kids would carry it.

And I wouldn’t do that to them.

They deserve to know who I actually am. Not the guy I pretended to be. Not the party guy. Not the guy sneaking into bedrooms.

The guy who tried. Who failed ALOT. Who’s still here.

That’s who I want them to know.

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Part VII: Where This Goes

Here’s what I know about addiction.

It starts functional.

You can still work. Still provide. Still show up. You’re the guy who parties on the weekend but makes his shifts. The guy who uses but never misses a safety meeting. The guy who’s “got it under control.”

That’s the lie we tell ourselves.

And for a while, it’s true.

Then it’s not.

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The progression:

Functional addiction becomes dependency. Weekend warrior becomes daily user. “I like this” becomes “I need this.”

Dependency becomes secrecy. Sneaking off. Locking doors. Lying about where you went, what you’re doing, why you’re different.

Secrecy becomes isolation. Friends notice. Wife notices. Kids notice something’s wrong even if they don’t know what.

Isolation becomes a broken home. Fights. Resentment. Distance. The person you love looks at you like they don’t recognise you anymore.

Broken home becomes divorce. Or close to it. The threat hanging there. “If you don’t stop, I’m leaving.” And meaning it.

And sometimes, it goes further.

Sometimes it ENDS.

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We’ve all been to that funeral.

The one where everyone’s whispering. Where the widow can’t look anyone in the eye. Where the kids are too young to understand but old enough to know something’s wrong. Where the eulogy is carefully worded because nobody wants to say “overdose” or “took his own life” or “we all saw this coming and did nothing.”

You stand there in your black suit, hungover, thinking: That could’ve been me.

Then you go to the wake, have three beers, and forget about it until the next one.

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I’m not trying to scare you.

I’m trying to be honest.

This is where it goes if you don’t pull the brakes.

Functional. Dependent. Secret. Isolated. Broken. Gone.

That’s the progression.

I was somewhere in the middle. Dependent. Secret. Starting to isolate.

And I could see where it went next if I didn’t change.

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Part VIII: The Uncomfortable Question

Are you offshore because you can’t trust yourself at home?

Not rhetorical. Actual question.

Are you doing 28-and-28 because the work demands it or because you know what happens when you’re home too long?

Are you grateful for the forced sobriety, or are you just relieved you don’t have to make the choice yourself?

Are you having six beers every night and telling yourself it’s fine because you’re functional?

Are you sneaking into rooms when you’re stressed and convincing yourself it helps?

Are you so busy you don’t have time to ask why you need to be so busy?

I didn’t have the answer for a long time.

But I had to start asking the question.

Why was I doing this?

What was I running from?

And did FIFO save me or just give me a place to hide?

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The Close

I’m clean now…

Not perfect. Not fixed. Not the guy who has it all figured out and can tell you the five steps to recovery.

Just clean. One day at a time. Working through it.

I walked. I went to therapy. I worked with a trainer. I changed the identity I’d built for twenty years.

And I’m writing this because I know others are doing the same thing.

Maybe you’re further along. Maybe you’re worse off. Maybe you’re exactly where I was: functional, employed, good dad, good worker, and absolutely terrified of what happens when you stop moving long enough to feel it.

I don’t know if FIFO saved me or just delayed the inevitable.

I don’t know if I broke the cycle or just got better at recognising it.

What I know is this.

I’m still here. My parents aren’t. And that has to mean something.

So I asked for help. I was honest even when it hurt. I admitted I was broken.

Because the alternative was the Ganges. The funeral. The people standing around asking the same question, “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

And I wouldn’t do that to my kids.

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Four weeks offshore. Forced sobriety. Switched vices.

Four weeks home. Mirror. Cupboard. Person I didn’t want to be.

Repeat.

Until I figured out how to stop.

Or until I didn’t.

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Most of us don’t stop. Most of us just get better at hiding it. Or worse at hiding it. And eventually, we’re the guy at the funeral everyone’s whispering about.

I was trying not to be that guy.

I’m still trying.

And if that’s not enough, at least my kids will know I tried.

At least they won’t watch a videotape of their father burning and wonder who the fuck he was.

That has to count for something.

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END

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I don’t know if this was the smartest thing I’ve ever written or the dumbest. But it’s honest. And if one guy reads this and asks for help instead of ending up at a funeral, it was worth it.

This newsletter is free. Always will be. If you know someone who needs to read this, send it. Don’t ask permission. Just send it.

If you’re struggling:

• Lifeline: 13 11 14

• DVA Open Arms: 1800 011 046

• Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636

Comments are open. Tell me I’m full of shit. Tell me you’re going through the same thing. Tell me your version. I respond to everything that’s real.

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See you in a week.

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