Michael Peattie's spiral of self destruction began with weed and booze at high school parties before moving on to pills at a nightclub.
Then he tried ice.
"As soon as it wore off I went back to get more, I was hooked from the very first time. Then I lost everything" he said.
"It was extremely easy for me to find it. At one stage I was staying in a place where next door there were dealers. It is everywhere."
Between the age of 18 and 22 he lost his friends, his job, his licence and his girlfriend. His family kicked him out and his addiction left him roughing it on the streets of Canberra and Goulburn.
At his lowest point his six foot frame weighed just 59 kilograms.
"I was basically just bones," he said. "It was just the most painful, tortuous existence."
He also noticed a drastic change in his personality.
"I had been a kind, warm hearted, genuine bloke but with my addiction to ice and other substances that all went out the window," Michael said.
"Everything good is replaced with bad. It takes you to dark places."
Michael felt his life had only three options - a psychiatric hospital, jail or death.
"I remember one time I was on the street of Goulburn, I could see the lights from the trucks on the highway, I was in such a morbid place in my mind all I wanted to do was to run in front of one and end it all," He said.
"I wasn't thinking of the truck driver or the consequences, the only thing that entered my mind was getting out of this painful life."
His mother offered him a fourth option - he could return to the family home if he sought rehabilitation.
"I really didn't want to go through with rehab," he said. "But I knew something had to change."
After three stints over two and a half years at the Salvation Army's Miracle Haven at Morriset near Lake Macquarie (now known as the Dooralong Transformation Centre) on the welfare organisation's bridge program to treat addictions he got clean.
He is now a nurse working in mental health unit and owns his own home. His mother now comes and stays with him on holidays.
Michael is open about his story because he wants people to know help is out there and lives can be rebuilt.
