Leesa Holman, pictured, used to use $800 worth of meth everyday – it tore apart her family and her kids were taken away
Leesa Holman used to use $800 worth of ice every day paying her drug debt by dealing on the street or by sleeping with her dealer.
The 40-year-old mum-of-three from Perth in Western Australia has been clean for four and a half years, managed to ‘get the kids back’ and is trying to leave the horrors of her drug-addled past behind.
But it isn’t easy, one of her children was damaged by the ice she took in pregnancy, and she still has flashbacks of finding her best friend who took her own life to escape the drug.
Despite being part of the scene for so long, the former user and dealer is still left in shock by the havoc caused by the ‘ice epidemic’ – and cringes when she hears small country towns have been ‘taken over by the drug’.
Once sleepy towns in every state are being torn apart by the ice scourge where the impacts of the drug are harder felt.
Some of the hardest hit towns include Wellington in NSW, St George in Queensland, Murray Bridge in South Australia, Smithton in Tasmania, Katherine in the Northern Territory, Albany in Western Australia and Sale in Victoria.
The mum-of-three is now almost unrecogniseable, four years after giving up her habit, and says her children ‘finally have the mum they deserve
She is speaking out after country towns across Australia were identified as being ‘ice hot-spots’ and wants to help other families from the pain brought on by meth
Margaret Gordon from Ice Breakers in Albany, WA, helps people beat their addiction – and has been working ‘on the frontline against ice’ since her grandson became hooked
‘Every time I drive back through some of those old streets and see primary-school aged dealers with bum bags on and gold chains around their necks I cringe.
‘I can’t understand why these kids are doing this with their lives,’ Ms Holman told Daily Mail Australia,
Margaret Gordon from Ice Breakers in Albany should be retired – but she has been working on the frontline against meth addiction since her own grandson ‘fell victim to the insidious drug’.
‘It is readily available, which is a huge problem, every town in Australia has a problem with it – whether they can see it or not.’
Ms Holman was heavily addicted to ice and used a gram a day – looking back she is ashamed of how violent she would become after ‘being awake for a week’.
‘I would pull knives on people, break through doors, scream,’ she said.
She is also ashamed of the violence witnessed by her kids.
‘One day my friend charged into the kitchen with a machete in her hand and tried to cut my head off, my son walked in and saw his mum pinned against the wall, he shouldn’t have had to see it.’
Ms Holman said she won’t touch meth again – finally ‘realises how much it means to have a happy home for her children’.
Ms Holman pictured at her 40th birthday – she says she feels better than she did when she was 30 and is happy with her life
She now puts her kids first – and is horrified by the things she exposed them to when she was high on ice
Pictured here, in the grips of her addiction, the mum remembers the moment her toddler saw a woman attack her with a machete – as if violence like that was normal
‘It isn’t easy to come off it took me a few years, my kids went into care for 18 months so that I could really concentrate on myself and get off it for good.’
Her best friend had been a ‘role model’ for Ms Holman.
The mum-of-three was left struggling to cope when she walked into her backyard after the school drop-off one morning to find her friend ‘hanging in the backyard’.
Chemicals and equipment found in a methamphetamine manufacturing lab
‘She had been off it for almost two years, then she started to be pulled back into the scene, instead of going back to being dependent on it she killed herself.
‘My partner who was also my dealer at the time couldn’t handle it – he tried to hang himself and failed but ended up committing suicide days later– it was after we had been awake for ten days, it was a destructive time.’
When she was forced to deal to come up with the cash for her own habit she found ‘everyone’ was on it – some of her frequent customers included ‘other mums, lawyers, school teachers and former heroin addicts’.
The mum pictured with her children during the height of her addiction – which went on for almost five years
This clandestine drug laboratory in Cowra, NSW was uncovered in 2015
Picture shows a drug lab dismantled by police in south-west Sydney
She refused to sell to children under 17 but knew children as young as 12 who would use daily.
Ice Breaker’s Ms Gordon said ice is dangerous because it effects everyone – this means children can also access the drug and get addicted.
‘There are young children who are experimenting with ice because they are in homes where it is readily available and their conditioned to the fact that using it is normal.
‘The youngest person I know who uses it is 11 but I am aware of children starting younger,’ she said.
Ice Breaker’s Ms Gordon, pictured here with co-worker Craig, believes the idea of ‘hot-spots’ in naive
Mandy, 68, says she was chased down the street by someone holding a running chainsaw in Murray Bridge, where she lives on the same street as eight ice dealers
But Ms Gordon, who helps addicts throughout Western Australia believes the term ‘hot-spots’ is naive.
‘I really don’t believe that anywhere is worse than anywhere else it is just if there is a larger population there are more people but it is the same percentage.’
According to Cracks in the ice, an online Government-funded toolkit about the meth crisis, 1.3 million Australians have used the drug – with rural and regional towns hit hardest.
The mother, pictured left on ice and right off, was shocked to hear 1.3 million Australians have tried meth