Emily’s story: finding stability at Birribi
When Emily* first came to Birribi, one of YSAS’ residential rehabilitation sites, she was deep in drug use, including ice and juice. This led to her family cutting off contact. “I ended up in really bad psychosis,” she says. “Then I tried coming off the juice and I ended up in a coma for four and a half days. I’d had enough and I wanted to get clean.”
Emily first went to a YSAS detox to help her withdraw from the drugs. “They were really good there, all the staff were really supportive,” she says. Then she came to Birribi, where she found the staff and drug education programs extremely helpful.
“They’ve helped me a lot to be able to deal with triggering situations and cravings,” she says. “And the peer support communications group has helped me to build healthy relationships and navigate them, because that’s quite hard sometimes,” she says.
She also found it really helpful to have a dedicated key worker and care coordinator. “I was actually going to go bankrupt when I first came here, and my worker sat down with me and figured out that I didn’t actually have to do that,” she says. “I’ve gotten thousands of dollars cleared from my name, which is good.”
Staff at Birribi also referred Emily to a psychiatrist through the Hamilton Centre. “Honestly, having a psychiatrist has really helped me,” she says. “I got my meds sorted and my mental health sorted, which has been something that has needed to be done for a long time.”
While she was at Birribi, Emily experienced a relapse after taking some leave to go home. “I overdosed and ended up back in hospital in a coma again,” she says. “The staff at Birribi — lucky I had them, because they saved my life. Even though I messed up, they let me come back to Birribi and start again, and I’m proud of that.”
Emily says a lot has changed since her time at Birribi. “I can function now, and I know what real happiness is,” she says. “I was so far gone when I was on the drugs — I couldn’t see properly, I couldn’t walk properly. Now I’ve reconnected with my family and I’m healthy again.”
Emily says she’d recommend Birribi to any young person looking to turn their life around.
“Birribi won’t fix your life, but it will give you a stable, safe environment in which to do so yourself,” she says.
She can’t thank the staff there enough. “You guys are amazing and you’re all doing an amazing job.”
*name has been changed.