Working to break the cycle

“I’m not here just to get out of prison, it’s because I’m also fed up with this life, so I want to change my whole life,” he said.

“Before I started having problems, I had always worked. I just want to get back to work.”

Brad found himself in a cycle of addiction, drug dealing and gun making, which was forming an undesirable downward pattern.

Tired of his tainted history repeating itself and being jailed again and again, he applied for bail during his third stint in prison.

He was refused.

So he tried again.

And again, he was denied.

From there, he went to the Supreme Court, which granted him bail at the Shepparton rehabilitation facility.

“It wasn’t likely to make it this far, but I finally did, so I decided to come in with open arms and see what we can do with it,” Brad said.

He has now been in the residence for six weeks; halfway through your stay.

He says things are going well for him.

“This is my first rehab. It’s different than I expected, but it’s good,” Brad said.

“I want to make positive changes in my life, so this gives me many avenues to do that.

“It exposes you to a lot of different things that you wouldn’t think to try on your own.”

After the first four weeks, the first stage, residents enter the second.

Normally, that means they can leave the facility unaccompanied for short stays, but Brad’s bail conditions don’t yet give him that freedom.

However, you may leave with a staff member to run essential errands or participate in group activities.

He said he would soon apply to have his bail conditions changed as he has missed out on simple things like going for a walk.

“Me and some of the other guys went golfing the other day, rather unsuccessfully, turns out we’re not touring Australia any time soon, but we got out of the house in the afternoon so stuff. how’s that good to do,” he said.

“It gets you out and back to doing a little bit of normal stuff instead of what we’ve done in the past, I guess.”

Alas, life isn’t all birds and buoyancy, and back at The Cottage there are chores to be done.

It’s another way to help residents get back up to “normal” home life.

“It is a good structure. Get everyone out of bed and give them something to do. The days fly by, they go really fast here,” said Brad.

“You get up, check in for about an hour, do our chores, clean the houses, and then we have classes here with one of the people.

“We look at the things that have to do with addiction, the behavior and the psychological side.

“We do it for an hour, an hour and a half, then there’s some free time in the arvo and then it’s time to cook dinner.

“We have two kitchen teams.”

Brad has the responsibility of being the leader of one of the kitchen teams.

Teams take turns preparing, cooking and cleaning.

“The food is good, but it depends on who’s cooking,” he laughed, hinting that there might be some friendly competition in the kitchen between chefs.

Maybe when Brad gets home to Warrnambool in early December, he’ll be assigned the roast turkey lunch for the 25th.

“I’m looking forward to coming home around Christmas and back to work after Christmas,” he said.

The former truck driver and tire fitter said he had a fellow auto shop owner in his hometown who had started looking for work for him ahead of his planned return.

∎ For more information about The Cottage, visit thecottage.org.au

∎ If you are struggling with addiction, call DirectLine 24/7 on 1800 888 236