By VICTORIA STONE-MEADOWS
FORMER Avonsleigh and Emerald resident Luke Williams has told his story about a life of drugs and self-destruction in a recently released book.
Before becoming a well-respected journalist, Mr Williams grew up in Avonsleigh and Emerald until he was 18 years old.
It was in the Hills that he endured years of drug abuse brought about by a tough time at school and mental illness.
“I had a good childhood in Avonsleigh, but when I went to Emerald Secondary College I was very badly picked on and bullied because I had slept with a male friend of mine when we were about the same age,” Mr Williams said.
“People found out and I got picked on for being gay; my primary schools friends disowned me, even the kid with muscular dystrophy picked on me for it.”
Mr Williams said he found it very difficult to make and keep friends once he had been branded as ‘the gay kid’ but managed to have a small group of friends as he went through the later years of school.
“I did have my own friends that I made, but they all tended to be outsiders and misfits and that was okay,” he said.
During Year 12, Mr Williams tried to fight back against his bullies but received death threats for his efforts and ended up completing his high school education via correspondence.
“When I finished high school, I had really bad anxiety,” Mr Williams said.
“It happened from the second I stepped onto the school yard; people would call me names and I didn’t understand it at the time, and though it seems obvious now, I couldn’t understand where the anxiety came from.”
It was shortly after he completed high school that Mr Williams started experimenting with drugs to help control his anxiety problems.
“I started experimenting with drugs through people I knew in Cockatoo,” he said.
Mr Williams said the people in Cockatoo were what he needed at the time to escape from his tortured life in Emerald.
“Cockatoo was gritty fun and had no politics, and I liked it, it was what I needed at the time,” he said.
“Through those folk, I came into using needles and amphetamines all the time, couldn’t leave the house unless I was on drugs and the more I took the worst the anxiety got in the long run, but I gained a lot of short-term confidence.”
Mr Williams continued to use illicit substances until he had a drug-induced psychotic breakdown about two years after finishing high school.
“I was experiencing audio hallucinations and delusions of grandeur as well as delusions of persecution and finding double meanings in words that weren’t there,” he said.
Mr Williams’ drug use only continued from there until he sought help for his addictions.
While researching crystal-meth addiction, Mr Williams’ previous drug issues resurfaced and he became addicted to ice.
He has written about his experiences of being a drug user in his book ‘The Ice Age: A journey into crystal-meth addiction’ and how this drug can destroy people.
