One Story of Many

From P addiction to a new future

You can’t put a price on what they do. How can you put a price on saving someone’s life? In my case they literally saved my life and my child’s. Te Whakaora is brave enough to confront those really hard ugly issues.

[As a child] I hated being sick, even now it sets off triggers, because Dad had access to me. The sexual abuse went on for years. I [would] look at his face and think you're not even my dad, you're a monster. I took gin to school in a lemonade bottle – I was a cupboard alcoholic without realising it.

[As I got older, a brothel] welcomed me in and said they would take care of me. In those rooms I was in control. I became very hard, unapproachable... [I ended up running] several brothels and became one of Auckland's most successful operators.

My partner and I got us to the most horrible point in our relationship. We became P addicts.

Before you know it you're being thrown up against walls, body imprints on the fridge, bloodied claw marks on walls where he'd dragged me down the hallway. I needed to get off P asap because I was pregnant.

Had I not met Cliffy [from Te Whakaora] that day I don't know, I don't know… all hope was gone. I was dying, my baby was dying. I was in a hopeless and helpless situation, I couldn't even think of a way out. I don't think I would be here today...

I wouldn't have believed it was possible [for me and my partner]. I thought this life was for other people not me.

FORMER PROSTITUTE AND P ADDICT
(She has since established an environmental group.)