Mick Hall — Prison, Heroin and Rehab

Mick: Wait a minute!

Tommy: Crossface! The Daily Talk Show, a conversation sometimes worth recording with Josh Janson and Tommy Jackett.

Josh: The Daily Talk Show.

Tommy: We've got a special guest, Mick Hall. Welcome, mate.

Mick: Hello. How are we, guys?

Josh: Yeah, we're very good. Excellent. We're just talking about ADD.

Tommy: We've all— I mean, I can only speak for myself. Everyone's pointing the finger at me when I was young saying I had it, and my mum said, "Get fucked." I reckon you got it. Yeah, and I do too. So joke's on you, Mum.

Josh: What's the difference? Do we know what the difference between ADD and ADHD is?

Tommy: One's sort of hyperactive disorder or attention deficit disorder.

Josh: I think that the H was added later in.

Mick: I think it was a bit of an add-on. Yeah, but a good add-on. It makes sense.

Tommy: Add another letter in there. Mick, we wanted you on, well, I sort of told Josh, and I have explored your storey with him because you and I have worked in the past. I've helped your good friend Craig Harper and yourself capture your storey through interview, and you're a fascinating— is it rude to say colorful?

Mick: No, no, colourful is really, really polite. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, that's really fucking polite.

Tommy: You're a colourful character because, I mean, you can go anywhere with colorful.

Josh: Yeah, well, no, the The way that Tommy, it's always funny hearing how people sell different people in. And so Tommy's quick sentence to get people excited about you is, yeah, was in jail with Chopper.

Tommy: Not that that's your selling point, mate.

Josh: And heroin addiction who's seen the other side and now helping people.

Tommy: But I follow it with now has founded a rehabilitation clinic.

Josh: He does have the last bit to be clear. He goes on the hard bit. He goes on the, this guy's a bit fucking loose with, and now he's, uh, he helps.

Mick: I was loose but now I'm tight. Yeah, that's very, that's very true, but it's a good description. I mean, yeah, the colourful fits and, you know, you, the elevator pitch about me is quite good. I like it.

Tommy: Finishing with you're a wholesome guy. And you know, the thing with the— and I, I would love to push in different areas. I don't know how comfortable you are, but we'll find out. The reason I talk about the Chopper stuff, and not to glorify, but at a time when I was young at— in high school, yeah, I was reading all of Chopper's books Yeah, I was so fascinated by— get this, just quickly, I went to a— this is— I went to an affluent Melbourne school. One of the kids' parents bought the Pentridge Prison, which— what, were you in the Pentridge Prison?

Mick: Oh yeah, I did do a bit of time at the very end of the Pentridge Prison era.

Josh: Was H Division around when you were there or no?

Mick: Yeah, H Division was around, yeah.

Tommy: And so the reason I mentioned Pentridge, this kid's parents bought Pentridge Prison. We had a dance party in B Division, literally.

Mick: We had the cells open, like, hey, we had a couple of dance parties there as well. Just let you know. Yeah, but we could leave. It's a different dance. Yeah.

Josh: And which one had more drugs?

Tommy: And so that's where I'm like, everything about it was fascinating. And I'm sure we'll touch on bits of your story, but from what I've heard, you've been to hell and back.

Mick: Yeah, yeah. Well, you're right. I mean, absolutely. Um, you know, my, uh, my personal storey is, um, it's even to this day, it's sort of, you know, when I describe it to people, it still you know, it's hard for me to imagine me being there, let alone, you know, other people sort of listening in. But, um, and, and funnily enough, um, I mean, I'm a, I'm an ex-addict, I'm in recovery, have been for almost 18 years. But, um, you know, it was a few years into my recovery before I actually realised how extreme my storey was. You see, to me, when you're living a particular lifestyle, it's your only normal. It's kind of all you know. And I knew it wasn't normal normal but I didn't think it was that bad. Yeah, but now that I look back, I go, oh fuck.

Tommy: Well, you're trying to survive at the time, so you can't be thinking it's too bad because you're amongst it, right?

Josh: Yeah, yeah.

Mick: No, I mean, look, I was suicidal. I didn't want to live and, um, and had, you know, like many suicide attempts, some pretty serious ones too. But, um, but I still didn't— you know, it's weird, you know, like I, I got clean and sober And I thought, I almost thought I wasn't bad enough to be a real addict. You know, incredible. And that's, I guess that's the denial. And I guess in one sense you have to have that denial when you're living an extreme life and you're involved in addiction to be able to survive. You've got to have a certain level of denial because if you accept reality as it really is, man, I won't live. You know, I can't live with that.

Josh: Do you have Facebook?

Mick: No.

Josh: Yeah, 'cause I was wondering, I was always wondering.

Tommy: Will you be my friend?

Josh: Exactly, yeah, I always start the show with finding out if we could be friends on Facebook. No, 'cause I always wonder having a transformation, you've got the, you know, did you find that as the addiction, you know, as you started to go through rehab and go through that, I always wonder about sort of your friendship groups and your network. Do you have to, do people leave when, the drugs go? What happens?

Mick: Yeah, quite often. I mean, that's— I mean, that's normally what happens. I mean, for me it was a little bit different to average Joe because I was involved in a criminal element. I was involved, and that was just part of the lifestyle I led, you know, or that— not that I led, that I was led by. Um, and, uh, and when I did sort of come out of the addiction, to leave that old world, would you believe Although it was incredibly dangerous and it was very detrimental to me and it was scary and all of those things, I was almost more scared of leaving it behind because it was the only kind of thing that I thought that I could do. I didn't believe that getting clean and sober and getting recovery was actually possible. And once you connect from the type of world that I was in, you can't go back. You know, once you've sort of— you're not well liked once you leave it. And, uh, you know, and it has to be a real definite decision to walk away from that lifestyle.

Tommy: I think we'll get to sort of, you know, that 18-year-ago period and what that felt like for you. But Josh and I, we're both not addicts, or I don't think, you know, Josh talks about food addiction, potentially having a, yeah, addictive personality. And, you know, Josh has never done drugs. Yeah, I have done drugs.

Josh: I did the whole genome testing through Dan, uh, through 23andMe, and it said that I'm like predisposed to, if I if I was doing heroin, I'd probably go harder or something like that. Okay, some sort of study.

Tommy: And so, you know, like, um, looking back to when you first started dabbling, yeah, what— I mean, was this just circumstantial, or did you feel like you had, you know, maybe like, oh, I shouldn't do it because I've got— I might be a bit of a Josh, you know, I might be a Josh?

Mick: No, no, I had no understanding of addiction whatsoever. I mean, when I first started using and drinking, I mean, I was 12. I didn't know anything about addiction. I didn't know anything about anything. All I knew was that in my life, and so from primary school, and then I started using in Form 1 in Year 7. And all I knew was that I hated who I was. I felt embarrassed of myself. I was completely and utterly frightened of everything. Terribly bullied and bashed at school and just felt awful, you know. And, and when I had my first real drink, it was— I mean, I used to wag school all the time, right? Like, I mean, you know, weekly I would wag school, not because I was a bad boy, but because I was intensely lonely, frightened, and, you know, and just felt shit. So I'd wag school and I met a guy. I've told this storey before. I met a guy down the back of the train tracks. I went to Cyndal Tech. Down the back of the train tracks, which runs along the back of the school, and he was a couple of years older than me. His nickname was Monkey. And he whistled out to me and he said, "Hey Mick, do you want to get pissed?" And I said, "Oh yeah, all right." And he said, "Okay, well wait here." And he got on his push bike, he rode it up to Mount Waverley shops, he bought 2 flagons of port each. And brought it back, and he handed me the flagon, and I didn't even know what port was. Um, and I whipped the top—

Tommy: what is Josh?

Josh: No, I have no idea.

Tommy: It's horrible.

Mick: Yeah, it's horrible alcohol.

Josh: Yeah, sure.

Mick: Um, I whipped the top off the bottle, the pungent smell hit my nose, and it fucking stunk like— oh, it was terrible.

Josh: Metho or something?

Mick: Oh no, it's, uh, it's a real pungent— um, anyway, I tipped the bottle to my lips, and as it— as this stuff hit my lips, it tasted worse than it smelled, right? But as it hit my stomach, man, I can— to this day I can still remember how it made me feel. And all of that negative shit that I was just telling you about left me.

Josh: Did you know about the, the negative shit? Like, is that something that you retrospectively see now, or in the moment were you actually feeling and recognising those thoughts?

Mick: It's retrospective, you know. Like, I didn't know what was wrong with me. I thought I was just pathetic. I thought there was something wrong with me and that I was just a pathetic mistake.

Tommy: You know, that scares the shit out of me hearing, you know, a 12-year-old kid feeling those feelings. I've got a— since I last saw you, Mick, I've got a 16-month-old boy.

Mick: Oh wow, congratulations.

Tommy: Yeah, and you know what, you're a father.

Mick: I am.

Tommy: And you know how it makes you more emotional as soon as the kid comes into the world. You become a big softie. But it's like, I think about those feelings as a 12, you know, for my son. Where was your parents at that stage?

Mick: Yeah, look, my parents loved me, but unfortunately my mother was, you know, very emotionally unavailable. Not deliberately, she had her own issues going on, and she was incredibly emotionally unavailable. My father is a legend, right? Like, I love my dad so much, right? He was my best friend throughout my whole life, right? And he always tried to back me, but unfortunately he's very naive. And, you know, back in an era, if you can imagine, in the, you know, late '70s, early '80s, where he just really didn't understand, he didn't know anything about addiction, he didn't know anything about talking about your feelings or, you know, how you're going. You know, he knew that I was struggling at school and he knew that there was stuff going on, but he didn't know what to do about it. You know, basically they relied on the teachers at school. Teachers at school were fucking hopeless. So, you know, there was just no help. I just received no help. And it wasn't from— this is nobody else's fault. Like, I don't blame anyone. It's just the time that I grew up in and the people that are around, they just didn't know any better. And certainly I didn't. So, you know, I was kind of caught in that. But it is, you know, it is horrible. It makes me feel sad talking about it.

Josh: Yeah.

Mick: As to how I was, you know, and it's driven me as a father now, you know, my kids, I've got 3 kids. I've got a 29-year-old daughter who was an addict and is clean now. And I've got 2 younger kids. I've got a 17-year-old son who's about to turn 18. And I've got a 12-year-old daughter. And these kids, you know, one of the things that I wanted to do with, especially the 2 youngest, is I wanted to make sure that all of the stuff that I missed out on I'm able to provide for them. So that means for me, you know, it's been incredibly important to teach them how to be emotionally articulate, to be emotionally intelligent, because that is going to be their best defence against addiction that they could possibly have. The more I can get my kids to understand their emotions, to be able to articulate them, the less likely they are to have a problem with drugs and alcohol. Because they're not going to turn to it for a solution. They've already got the skills. But not only that, you know, I'm there for my son in terms of, my son's a boxer and he's won his first 3 fights. I'm very, very proud of him.

Tommy: Is he training you now? Because I said you're looking bloody trim, mate.

Mick: Well, I do train with him and we're actually sparring against each other tomorrow morning.

Josh: So this is your last interview.

Mick: Well, I've given him a black eye and he's given me a couple of injuries as well. But look, he's got Olympic dreams and he's training and you know what? It costs a lot of money. You know what I mean? Like there's a lot of equipment, there's a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of, but I'm there for my son. I'm there because I wish I had been given the opportunities that I can now give my son.

Josh: Do addicts create other addicts? Is that a thing?

Mick: Well, do addicts create other addicts?

Josh: I guess in the sense of, do parents have kids kids that are addicted? Like, what's that relationship? Was it just pure coincidence?

Mick: Is there a genetic component? Is that what you're asking? Yeah, yeah, there is a genetic component. Um, we know that, um, that if a family has alcoholics and addicts in it, that any children that are born into that family have a greater likelihood of picking up the addiction, um, gene. So, so genetics play about a 30% role in determining whether or not someone becomes an addict or not. So just because your brain is susceptible and it already has the makeup, um, without getting too technical, but it already has the makeup, um, to become fully addicted, not everybody will go down that path. Yeah, you know, and again, even if the brain has that makeup, if that person develops the right emotional skills, right, and psychological skills and, uh, you know, makes some good choices in their life and, and kind of doesn't— I guess doesn't fall into that, you know, into that, um, position where they're going to start feeling emotional pain or psychological pain and start using drugs, you know, they've got a great likelihood of not ever developing a, a full-blown addiction.

Josh: Well, they have this— they have this energy, right? And they have a choice of where that energy goes, and it could be really a positive, probably athletes are created from that same sort of genetic makeup. It's like showing up every day and the drive to do something. So you can put it into boxing or you can put it into something that's not as good for you.

Mick: Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. But I mean, you know, it's like somebody coming from an abusive background. Now, just because someone's had an abusive childhood doesn't mean that they're going to be an addict. It doesn't mean that they're going to have problems when they get older. It really depends on the person, and, and it can depend on what supports around, what, who they come across in their life, um, how, you know, a million different factors come into play. Just because there's been a certain background doesn't mean that there's going to be a certain outcome. It's the same with successful stuff as well. Just because someone's successful doesn't doesn't mean that the child is going to be successful either.

Josh: Yeah, true.

Tommy: You know, so I, I left school when I was 16. I started drinking at 12. Yeah. And my life, I guess, has gone in a much different direction. And I've always had those thinking around, oh, am I doing this too much? I smoke— I remember smoking weed for 30, at least a month straight, and I was like, that's too much. And I had that— that was like, I was 16 at that time.

Mick: Yeah.

Tommy: And so that's pretty thoughtful around that. And I remember me and my friends were all talking about that And, and thankfully, the, the circle I was hanging around with, my close friends, none of us became addicts in that respect, but we always dabbled. And so you kind of went on from being the 12-year-old kid who's had his first taste. Yeah. I mean, what's that journey then along, along that path?

Mick: Oh man, for me it was— it— for me it was instantaneous. There's some people that slowly but surely, you know, drink or use themselves into addiction. Over a long period of time. And there's many people that can sit here at 25 or 30 and say, hey, now I'm lucky I was never an addict. And then at 50, we're going, oh man, get this guy into rehab because it's taken over, you know. So this is something that can develop over a long period of time. For me, it happened right from the get-go. My first drink, um, was the best drink I ever had, um, so it only got worse from there. And my first drink, I was in a blackout So that's where you're still operating and doing things, but you have no memory of it, right? It's like an amnesia, right? Um, so I was in a blackout. I went down the back of the school and called the principal a fucking this and a fucking that. Wandered down the train lines, apparently passed out on the train lines. Principal found me, ambulance called. In hospital, alcohol poisoning. Parents called, and that's the best it ever got. It only got worse from there. So my life and my addiction was an absolute train wreck from the first drink. And so I never— I can tell you, I never thought about, hmm, I'm doing this too much, I better just, you know, quieten this down. Mate, I was out of control from the word go.

Josh: Was it self-destructive?

Mick: Oh yeah.

Josh: And was it— do you think it was designed that way? Were you doing it in a way where— was it sort of suicide by alcohol, or was it actually an enjoyable experience that you were feeling?

Mick: That's a really good question. I think it fluctuated. Sometimes it was a bit of a suicide, you know, like sometimes it was, it was done in complete and utter self-pity and just, I just want to escape, whether that's through death or whether that's through a chemical feeling or whether that's through whatever consequence. See, part of the things with addiction is, is that consequences really don't come into play. We push them aside as addicts, you know. There's a, there's a real, I guess, denial that slips in and pushes all the bad consequences to one side. We know they're coming, but we don't give a fuck. Yeah, we do it anyway because I just cannot live in this moment like this anymore. So I just want to fucking— I'm going to drink, and you know, if that, you know, if that results in me being locked up, if that results in me being, you know, dead, if that results in me being in trouble, I don't give a fuck. I'll think about it later.

Tommy: Is that driven by anger inside, like, you know, the feelings of hating yourself and all of that. But I know in times in my life I've felt like— I've— when I was young, I would feel like I don't give a fuck about anything, you know.

Josh: There's a freedom to it. Having never done it, it's sort of— yeah, it's, uh, it's—

Mick: you—

Josh: they talk about, you know, detachment being a powerful thing. In some regards, what you're describing is detachment in a really sort of negative way. Oh yeah, but it's, uh, yeah, it's sort of opening yourself up to whatever happens, happens, without any sort of idea of consequences.

Tommy: Was it anger driving you for those years after, you know?

Mick: Look, I don't know if I'd say it was anger. I mean, I definitely— I suppose looking back I can say there was self-hate, you know. Um, you know, I didn't like who I was. I thought I was a defect. Yeah, you know, I thought that I just wasn't— I was just different to other people, and not different in a good way. Oh, you're different, you know. It was different as in you're pathetic, you know. And I've never believed in my life until I got well into my recovery that I was worth anything and that there was any possible way I could have any type of success at anything. Never believed for one second. So, so that's just what I went with. Now, at 12, 13, 14, 15, I wasn't walking around thinking anything too deep.

Josh: And anger is almost like a mask, right? It's not like the thing that, like, you were going out angry— like, that's just what comes out of all of this sort of—

Mick: that's right. All anger— I don't give a fuck who it is, whether it's we're in Pentridge in D Division in the yards and there's a big tattooed guy with tattoos all over his face that's, you know, wanting to smash everyone and, you know, shiv them, um, or whether it's, you know, um, me on any given day or, or Anyone else in between, all anger is covering fear, right? It's all about fear. The biggest, toughest bloke that has to continually prove himself is frightened of not— of being someone coming along and being, you know, bigger and badder, you know. Like, it's— so the fear is what's underneath. And I've always had a fear. I talked about the loneliness and the— and I was frightened and all of that sort of stuff. And as a little child, and you know what, like, when I was 28 years old, up in Queensland, walking to maximum security prison with no drugs or alcohol in me. I was no different internally to what I was when I was 8, 9, 10, 11 years old. Yeah, exactly the same. Oh, that's exactly where I was back at, except now my life really was on the line and I couldn't show it in any way, shape, or form. So you Um, so become very, very good at— this is part of addiction, you know. We've become very, very good at masking, at, um, surviving, adapting, uh, all of that sort of stuff. I mean, addicts are very resourceful, extremely resourceful, usually incredibly smart people in a particular way. Yeah, you know, um, we're very, very good at, at making it through, at, at finding a way through, finding a way to survive. Even though, you know, a big part of us internally is trying— is it going against that? You know, it takes a lot of energy and a lot of effort to do that.

Josh: There's an entrepreneurial element to it.

Mick: There is, right? Yes, there is.

Josh: And so you've used that entrepreneurial element for good, um, of late. So tell us, what is the business? What's the business?

Mick: Yeah, so I run a rehab. I've got a rehab called Dayhab. It's a residential treatment center, and, um, and helped thousands of people turn their lives around from addiction. It's an organisation that I started about 7 years ago and put my heart, my soul, and, and some of my money into it as well. And, and, and slowly but surely over the last 7 years I've built a really good strong organization. I'm incredibly proud of it. I've got lots of people that work for me, most of whom have been through addiction themselves. Yeah.

Josh: What's it like having a workforce that are all ex-addicts?

Mick: Good and bad. Yeah, because we're all fucking crazy, you know, and everyone's fucking highly emotional and super sensitive and at different stages of their recovery. And, and, you know, I mean, people think that, you know, um, oh, you're in recovery, oh, thank God, everything's okay now.

Josh: Yeah.

Mick: Oh, that's golden, you know. But it ain't like that, you know.

Tommy: It's just the start of the journey.

Mick: Oh yeah.

Tommy: So you use some of that resourcefulness that you had in finding drugs and surviving jail to create this? Were some of those feelings of the 12-year-old kid or that person that sounds like, you know, they couldn't break through that, those younger years, those feelings come up when you started this business? Were you doubting yourself?

Mick: Yeah, oh yeah, definitely, you know, but I mean, this business was started at 10 years into my recovery, remember? So for the first 10 years of my recovery, I spent most of that not really, still not really believing that I was gonna be successful or I could be successful in any way, shape, or form. It all started at the very beginning when I first rented an apartment. I'd never had an apartment or a bill in my name ever.

Josh: What is that process like?

Mick: It's unbelievable, it's great.

Josh: Is it hard as well? Like what's the actual administrative sort of stuff when they're looking? Like it's hard enough someone who hasn't been in jail or had any—

Tommy: Just left school, 18, wanted to get an apartment. Is that what you mean?

Josh: Yeah, super hard. So being in that sort of position I guess you're relying on the world and community to give you another go.

Mick: Absolutely. So I was really reliant on someone sort of just saying, look, mate, really, you're fucking hopeless, but we'll give you a shot and just see what happens. And luckily for me, that's what happened. You know, I got a little unit out in Bayswater.

Josh: Yeah.

Mick: And it was an exciting time for me. You know, like, for the first time I'd rented the property and, you know, I was fucking crazy. You know, like, I was You know, getting recovery means you start to take responsibility for yourself, you know. But I used to, I used to get off on paying my bills, you know. Like, I used to walk down to the fucking post office with my, you know, like my gas bill, and they'd scan the barcode and staple the receipt onto it and fold it up, put it into my pocket, walk out of there going, I'm a fucking big boy now, you know. Like, yeah, I'd, I'd get off on it. I'd spin out, you know.

Tommy: Is that a conscious thought to do that, or you just— that was just how you felt? Or did you think, no, I'm gonna turn this into something really positive?

Mick: No, it was just how it came about, you know. Like, I was just spinning. It was like a whole new world opening up to me that I never dreamed in a million years was possible for me, you know. Um, but it was simple stuff like that. But, but look, you know, the, the self-doubt plagued me throughout my recovery, you know. Like, I'd get a job and I'd never worked legally since I was 17, so when I was 30 at this stage, and by the time I got really got some work and got a job about 32 you know, so I was like a 16-year-old leaving school, you know, and I'd go into the job as a child in an adult's body. Um, and the entire time I'm sitting in, you know, wherever I am at work, I'm waiting for the old tap on the shoulder. Excuse me, sir, we've made a horrible mistake. You're really a fuckwit. Now get out. Right. And I, I've always been waiting for the rug to be pulled.

Josh: Yeah.

Mick: So as an addict through my life I'm the master of rebuilding my life, and this has held me in good stead in recovery and in business. I am the master of having my life completely and utterly fucking pulled out from under me and completely and totally rebuilding it in a very short period of time.

Tommy: It's a really nice—

Mick: and having it pulled out again, yeah, and then do it again and pulled out again. So, but that becomes what you expect.

Tommy: Rehabilitation, I've had some friends in jail and I've gone to visit them and I didn't really get a sense that the jails are there rehabilitating them, which is essentially what they're trying to do. They're trying to turn you over into a new person in a confined space. What did you find? What— when did you first go to jail and what was your take on it?

Mick: Yeah, good question. Um, well, I don't know if jail's about rehabilitation, you know. Um, I mean, they sell it, don't they? Well, I don't know, do they? I mean, it's about punishment, it's about justice, they reckon. It's about punishment.

Tommy: Yeah, but I think if they go, we sure you're serving 10 years and you come out the other side and you should have learned your lesson. And along the way they think—

Josh: but that's not rehabilitation, is it?

Tommy: They're taking incarceration, little things in there. I've always— maybe I'm wrong, but I've always felt like they sell it as you've been caught, you're in trouble, now you're going away and you— and we're going to try and at least help you out.

Josh: Gets us— I get the sense of it's like you're not fit for public consumption, so we're going to put you away with a group of people who are also a bit fucking tweaked who can't be in public. I feel like it would be a pretty, uh, yeah, scary, uh, scary sort of place.

Mick: It is. Look, there's not a lot of rehabilitation that happens, but I mean, it's up to each individual prisoner as to how much effort they want to put into rehabilitating themselves, you know. And, and that's really what it comes down to. You've got to push for— if you, you know, you've got to have some good behavior, you've got to be transferred to a prison where there's some programmes available, and then you've got to apply for them, and you've got to push for them, say, this is what I want to do. And of course, it all comes back down to your behavior, how you acted within the prison. But you've got all sorts of peer pressure there. Remember, prison is a world that you don't know about, um, unless you've been in there. And it's— anything that you think you know out here on the outside means nothing in prison. Yeah, it is a completely different world, different rules, different, different fashion, right? And believe me, there is prison fashion, right? So everything, right?

Josh: So What is—

Tommy: what's the latest? And I was looking at his shoes and he usually wears Nikes. He said they've banned Nikes in here because everyone was rolling each other for them. Yeah, they were bashing each other. I want your Nikes. So they only had like 2 brands that they could wear.

Josh: Yeah. You've got a few tattoos. Any that you got in jail?

Mick: Yeah, quite a few.

Josh: Dumb question. You wait until you got out and like, fuck it, now I'll go to work.

Mick: Quite a few.

Josh: What's the deal? What's the— what's the what's tat culture like in jail? What's the deal?

Mick: Well, I don't know anymore. It's been a long time since I've been in there, you know. And, um, but back when I was in there, I mean, tattoos weren't as popular as they were— as they are now. Some guy said something to me, uh, not that long ago I thought was quite funny. He said, uh, so many people have got tattoos now, it's too hard to tell who's tough.

Josh: Yeah, so funny.

Mick: But it's— but look, back in the day, I mean, tattoos were you know, only the people that had sort of been to prison or had had some sort of, you know, been gang affiliated or something like that really had sort of prison tattoos. And we used to call it, you've got to earn your stripes, you know. And it's—

Josh: and they just go to Smith Street on Collingwood.

Mick: Yeah, nobody's earning their stripes anymore, you know. And but you can tell the difference between, between prison tats and, you know, tats that are designer, you know, been done down at the local shop and What do the tattoos mean to you?

Josh: Like, what did it mean at the time and what do they mean to you now?

Mick: You know, my very favourite tattoo is one that's on my ankle, which is, you know, probably my worst tattoo. Yeah, I'm just lifting my leg up here and let the boys have a look.

Josh: Yeah, what is it?

Mick: It is a rose, it's a black rose.

Josh: Yeah, it says Jessie on it.

Mick: Jessie, so that's my daughter. That one was done at Wonnarua Prison. Um, I won't say the guy's name, but, um, we were in the, in the brasko, so we're in the toilet Yeah, and I'm there with my leg kind of up in the air, him with a dirty old tattoo gun with a blunt needle and Indian ink, and, you know, trying to ram this thing into my leg. And it was so fucking painful, it was unbelievable. And I've got a guy watching out for screws and, you know, so that we wouldn't get caught doing it. And I had to pay him a few packs of Winnie Reds for it. And, um, and it was actually that year that I won the going on to a different train of thought, but I won the sweep. I won the Melbourne Cup sweep. Might and Power won the Melbourne Cup. Yeah, and I was due like something like 200 cans of Coke and about 20 packets of White Ox. And the, the day that I was meant to collect, I got, um, I got swooped by security in the prison and they did drug tests and I'd been done for using drugs in prison and they transferred me. I didn't get paid out. I missed the sweep.

Tommy: So who owes you 200 cans?

Mick: Well, can we not— quite a few prisoners that do.

Josh: Can we not use our podcast to reach out to prisoners and what we are. I'm not mixing cans of coke. I'm currently, yeah, I'm not sort of the, I don't want my glasses broken or anything.

Mick: It's all right, I'm off the coke now, that's all right.

Josh: What was the, so what was rock bottom?

Mick: Rock bottom? In the addiction?

Josh: Yeah, in like, maybe it's not addiction. What was the, what has been?

Mick: I've had a few.

Josh: Yeah, go through it. What was the first rock bottom? The first moment where you're like, Obviously there was that time with Monkey. Yep. You know, it probably didn't feel like rock bottom at the time, it's only retrospectively. But what was the one that in the moment, yeah, you're like, actually Mick, I think you really fucked yourself here?

Mick: Yeah, yeah, I've got— I know exactly where to go with this one. So there's a moment of time, it was that prison sentence that I was just talking about. I got released and I had nowhere to live, I had no money. And, and just to sort of paint the story, um, in that prison sentence I used to— I hadn't used heroin yet, so I was a heroin addict for the last 5 years of my addiction, right? And I hadn't used heroin yet, so I'd been doing time and whatever, and it was through criminal behavior, um, but I was an alcoholic and I'd used other drugs and all that sort of stuff. But in prison I used to watch— honestly, they used to have visits on a Sunday, and after the visits you, you go back to your cell and you look across across the way, and you'd see all these prisoners milling outside somebody's cell, and you knew that they were heroin addicts and knew that someone had just had heroin smuggled in. And I used to stand there with me, with me mate Bopper, and we go, have a look at these fucking idiots, they're fucking weak as piss. Here I am, an addict in prison with them, pointing the finger at them saying, look at these fucking idiots, right? They're just so pathetic, they're so weak using heroin. And we'd scoff at them and whatever, and, you know, go in and drink our prison grog and smoke our prison cones through an apple, you know. But, um, yeah, but anyway, um, resourceful. Yeah, very resourceful. But, um, but look, I got released from that prison sentence, had nowhere to go, no money, um, you know, I just had nothing. And, uh, um, I was drinking and everything again, and, you know, like, I was just in such a depression. I was just so low within myself. I just just absolutely bereft of any hope, you know.

Josh: And what was that day like? You, you go out, what, what was day one? What does that, what does that actually look like?

Mick: Day one is exhilarating because you get a— the first thing you do, which is, it's like gold, you get a cheque from the, from the prison, you know. Basically it's a dole check.

Josh: Yeah. Um, so it would have been like a few hundred bucks or something, 200 bucks, something like that back then.

Mick: And that was just like, great, I can, you know, I was just looking forward to some freedom and actually getting on the grog and on the drugs.

Tommy: If you don't call that rehabilitation, the $200 check, I don't know what is. Fuck it, it definitely isn't rehabilitation.

Mick: So it's exhilarating, and then the next morning it's the depths of depression, and you realise reality sets in. You actually, you're out, you're now out on the loose, so you're not getting any meals provided anymore, you've got no shelter, and there's just not— you've got nothing.

Josh: Did you open up a bank? Did you have a bank account already? Like, what's that?

Mick: What's that? Account already? What's the admin things that you do when you first go to the dole office? You got a Centrelink?

Josh: Yeah.

Mick: You know, and you go and ask for another payout, and you work, you work the system and say that you're in distress so you can get another payout so that you can use or drink again so that you can forget about what's going on. And then, you know, try and get somewhere to stay. And, and that's what I did. I, I come across a guy who I used to knock around with who owned a, um, a car detailing factory in Dandenong.

Josh: Yeah.

Mick: And it was a dirty, disgusting joint. Now this guy, he was a heroin user. Right? How he kept his business open, I'll never know. But anyway, every day, like, he got me to start working with him, right? And he had this broken-down caravan inside the factory. It was a shithole, grease all over. It was fucking terrible, right? And he said, you can live in it, right, but you've got to work for me each day, right, in the detailing cars. It was my only option. I had to.

Tommy: It was the best deal you had.

Mick: Best deal I'd ever had. Anyway, I started doing it, and then of course every day— back in the day, you know, heroin dealers was a, you know, was an Asian guy driving a Subaru WRX. You'd hear the boxer engine coming down the road. Oh, that's the dealer. The dealer would turn up every day. He made it go into the office, have a big hit of smack, and come out just a different man, scratching his chin, and just, you know, nothing's bothering him anymore, and, uh, and get on with it. And, uh, and I was in such despair, and I really wanted to die, to be honest with you. And, um, I remember saying to him, hey, I won't say his name, say, uh, hey mate, um, I want to use. I want— next time the dealer comes, get me, get me a taste of heroin. He said, mate, you really want to do this? Like, this is, this is heroin. I said, I don't give a fuck. I said, get it. I said, fucking put that shit in my arm. And if I'm lucky, it'll kill me, you know. And, and he said, well, he said, welcome to the problem, welcome to the battle for the rest of your life.

Tommy: So he's even got some awareness around it.

Mick: Oh yeah, and he's a big awareness. Wow, big awareness. And I remember sitting there and him jacking that needle back when it was in my arm, and I remember seeing the little, you know, spurt of blood go back into the, into the syringe, and him plunging that stuff into my arm. And as it was going into my arm, I could feel myself almost losing consciousness. But I was just thinking, I hope this fucking kills me. Wow. And, uh, and it didn't. Um, and then what ended up happening is, is that I was chained to him for the next number of months because I needed to use heroin every single day. And if I didn't use it, I was incredibly sick. Um, and so I had no choice but to keep working for him, and then he'd buy me little, little bits and pieces of heroin each day. Uh, and that's— that was a pretty big low.

Josh: Yeah. Well, Tommy has mentioned about, you know, suicide. He's had a few friends in his life commit suicide, and he's talked about it being, uh, you know, that the permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Mick: Yeah.

Josh: In some regards, it sounds like, you know, heroin, this type of thing, is, is that, that same exact sort of thing. It's almost like it, it— the way you're describing it seemed like a bit of a life sentence.

Mick: Oh, it was a life sentence. And back for me, when I was using heroin in those days, we never saw— I never knew of any heroin addicts that made it out of addiction. It, you know, it— the way that it was back then is that if you got onto heroin, your likelihood of actually stopping using and turning your life around was almost zero. We just, you know, what you could expect through using heroin is you expect to overdose and die, certainly within a 10-year period of using it. Within 10 years, you will have either died or you will have done a significant period in prison, you know. And that was the— that's the— that's the best case scenario.

Tommy: Do you identify that as rock bottom, or is it— did it get worse?

Mick: No, I got worse than that. That was— that was the That was the beginning. That was the beginning of the really bad bit, which is—

Tommy: wow—

Mick: which is there was another half decade on top of that, um, where everything that I'd been through in my life, um, I thought was, you know, like, it was pretty bad and I'd been through hell, but it was nothing, nothing compared to where heroin took me for the next 5 years. Yeah, absolutely nothing. Um, you know, I went down to the depths of depravity that I never even believed was possible. You know, I got caught. This addiction governed everything that I did, thought, said. Um, you know, it, it had me hook, line, and sinker. You know, my thoughts, my feelings, my actions were no longer my own. I was completely governed by this drug. And it's, it's hard to describe the power of heroin.

Tommy: Is that a retrospective thought, or is it—

Josh: are you—

Tommy: were you aware, like the bloke who said don't do it?

Mick: I was aware. Okay, so 100%.

Tommy: That's, that's, um, what is it, uh, what's the place like?

Mick: Hell.

Tommy: There's a word for it, um, fucking forgot it. I fucked that up.

Mick: Hell will do. Yeah, hell will do when you can't think of something else.

Tommy: Oh, it's like between heaven and hell, and it's like you're stuck in this middle bit.

Mick: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh: The— it I used to live on in Abbotsford and there's a corner sort of near Victoria Street where I was walking with my brother and we're talking, I was talking about the proximity effect in regards to the people that you're around. And it was almost like this street was a metaphor for this example where it's like, it's all fine, everything's good, leafy fucking green, sort of Nicholson Street and then—

Mick: Then 1 metre later.

Josh: Yeah, and then 1 metre later there's—

Mick: Gravity.

Josh: Yeah, and so, What I've always found interesting is I've seen my view of drug addiction and this sort of thing change over time. Where I remember being a kid, it was sort of— it's sort of the drug dehumanises people. And not only does it do it for them, it does it for the community around. We don't see them as real people.

Mick: Yeah.

Josh: And so I like— I just, I think that over spending a 3 years in Abbotsford and walking past, my mind has shifted from a place of, look at this fucking junkie just doing their thing to here's a person who's gone through all of this stuff. And you'll see there's the common visual that you'd see is you've got someone who's got it sort of semi-together and they're a little bit better dressed and they're fucking walking fast and there's 2 of them behind and they're fucking chasing and you know that they're showing them off to wherever the fucking next hit's gonna be. And they're just following along. What is your take? What is your view now that you're sort of, you know, you're on your journey with the whole rehabilitation? Yeah, how do you sort of, how can we reconcile? How can the general public, how can we do our part in this whole thing?

Mick: Ah geez, that's a good question. It's a complex one too, you know. And see, one thing that we tend to do is we stereotype addicts. We think that they're the, you know, guys down Victoria Street, or, you know, like back in my day it was the score in, you know, Dandenong, or the little guys on the street in Dandenong or Springvale or wherever. And, um, and it's, it's the, the crims and the, you know, look, I've got an extreme storey and I am, you know, I'm just one of those extreme stories, but they're not all like mine, you know. Like, like addiction, you know, the people that I treat, man, I've had, you know, I've had AFL stars, NRL stars, I've had you know, um, celebrities. I've had, you know, successful people. I've also had people from prison. I've had everything in between. So, so, you know, addiction doesn't discriminate. So I guess that, you know, one of the things that I like to do on any sort of podcast or radio or anything like that, one of the things I'm interested in doing is, is breaking the stigma around addiction. You know, like, like, we're not people that are just scumbags. That, that don't deserve life and that have just, you know, choose to just be assholes. Yeah, you know, that's, that's not how it is. All right, most people living this way, if you were able to break it right down, they don't want to be living that way. They just do not know how to not live that way. And, and so, so help is needed. That's not to say that every addict is an awesome person and they only do good stuff. No, they don't. We all do stuff. I deserved every bit of prison time I got. I mean that, you know. I never ever walk around and go, oh, I copped about a bum rap, I copped a, you know, hard time. Bullshit. I did shit wrong. Yes, I was unwell. Yes, I was not in my own mind. And yes, I'm given no drugs and alcohol on board, there's no way in a million years I would have done any of the things that I did. But I still did them. I need to take responsibility for that. And, and that's something that, you know, that needs to happen for any addict that's out there doing stuff. So But there are people that are out there that are addicts but are fucking assholes too.

Josh: And what do we have to do, the people around? Like, I remember a storey of a friend of mine who his brother had all different types of addictions, and it, you know, he was talking about his own safety and not feeling safe. But there's this desire to— you want to, you want to help. And it felt like in that moment he had to just make a decision of, mate, you're, you're on your own. Like, there's nothing else that we can do. Do you Do you believe in, in that idea? If someone doesn't want to help themselves or if they can't help themselves, yeah, are they just bringing down the rest of the family or the rest of the community? Or is there some way that we can actually be a good force and actually help these people?

Mick: Yeah, I mean, really the good force that you can be is to not accept unacceptable behavior, you know. I mean, that's really what it comes down to. One of the biggest problems with people using is that the people around them, it's usually family members and, and the closer community— and this can happen a little bit in the public sector of, of drug and alcohol rehabilitation and social working and that sort of stuff— is that a lot of the consequences for the person that's using can be mopped up behind them and kind of taken care of. That enables them to continue their behaviour without feeling the full brunt of their, their consequences. So the most important thing that a family member can do if they've got it— because most addicts, when they're in the middle of using They're not going to go, "Mum, get on the phone to the rehab. I'm changing my life right now." Right, that's not going to happen.

Josh: Yeah, does it ever happen? Like, does that—

Mick: it does happen.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, in the midway, like after someone's shooting up and that, like, for whatever reason they've been able to have that enlightenment in that time.

Mick: There's plenty of people that go through that and feel that, but very quickly the realisation comes that, you know, they've tried it 10,000 times before and it doesn't work, so it's a load of shit. So, and then the obsession to use kicks in again and keep going, it makes them keep going. But, but the, you know, the majority of calls we get at Dayhab are from family members. I say, yeah, but he doesn't even want help. We go, yeah, that's okay. So this is what we want you to do. So we help guide the, the family to tackle the situation in a way which is about them protecting their environment and their boundaries, explaining to the person they love them and they want to help them. But unless they're willing to get some help themselves, they've got to detach.

Josh: So it's about cutting them off?

Mick: Not cutting them off, detaching with love. So if I was to say, if you were living with me, Josh, and you were using, and I had to say to you, listen, mate, I can't do that anymore, right? I can't live like this. This is my environment, right? And I care about you, but I'm not going to live like that with this in my house. So you need to leave. The only way that I'm going to allow you to stay is if you're willing to come to a couple of appointments and get some help for yourself.

Tommy: Putting that out there. I saw, Mick, when I lived in Shepparton, yeah, I was up there working, and, um, I saw a friend of mine who lives there post an article of a drug addict who had stolen something and was on the run, and it was a mate that he grew up with.

Mick: Yeah.

Tommy: And he shared this link and he said something like, you know, I grew up with him, he's such a great guy, you know, give him a break or something.

Mick: Yeah.

Tommy: And then I read in the comments section, his sister— so the dude who's on the run, his sister said, we don't want your help, he is a scumbag. Or so basically she was saying, he's done the wrong thing, he needs to get caught and be in trouble.

Mick: Yeah.

Tommy: And it was like this hard thing to fathom that, yeah, you're going against someone that you love.

Mick: Yeah.

Tommy: But it is a kind of that he has to take it.

Mick: Sounds like she was doing the right thing.

Tommy: Yeah, and now hearing you, that's what triggered that thought about the story.

Josh: But what's the language? I'm curious, Mick, what's the— Language is so important. The words that we say and the actions that we do are super important. So what's the difference between, you know, "You're a fucking scumbag" versus, you know, do you find that people with addiction relate well to that sort of thing? Or is it the empathetic type of thing? Like, "I know you're not this person, you're not acting the way that," you are as a human.

Mick: You're spot on. You just said it beautifully. Yeah, I mean, that's— that's— and look, you know what, what we do when we're trying to help people is we plant seeds, right? So, so, so the addict that's using keeps hitting low spots, right? While they're in the middle of— if they've just used, they don't want to hear anything. You're not going to tell them fucking anything. But if you give them a couple of, you know, like, words that you just said— yeah, um, the next time that they're in that low spot, they remember that you spoke to them that way. They go, fuck, And so you're going to be the point of call they're going to come back to when they say, hey, listen, listen, you're right, I'm fucked, I need help, can you help me?

Josh: Yeah, right.

Mick: But it's important. It's one thing, uh, being empathetic and saying, listen, we want to help you. Oh yeah, how? Yeah, because unless you've got fucking armed with a solution, your, your promise of help is absolutely worthless. And the person will know that because they'll know that you just don't have anything to offer. Like, they know that nothing's going to work.

Josh: And so what is the solution? How much of it, you know, with what you're doing at Day Rehab, how much of it is, uh, sort of real sort of scientific sort of chemical type stuff of like, okay, we're going to get you off the substance versus psychological and mental?

Mick: So in terms of the— yeah, that's, that's another good question. So everybody gets caught up with addiction that it's the actual substance that the person's using, and as soon as I stop using that substance that they're being treated and it's okay. And that's not true.

Josh: Well, just look at you as an example, right?

Mick: Like, yeah, I'm still a unit.

Josh: Yeah, you've gone through, you went through, like you had the, as you said, the 12-year-old, you know, that experience is actually the same action of you in Dandy having your first hit of heroin in a lot of ways.

Tommy: Yeah, the same 3 words: I don't give a fuck. 4 words: I don't give a fuck. Yeah, it was the same dude. Yeah, let's take family off the table because we're talking around solutions of when someone else can step in or do their bit. Yeah, what if you've got nothing? Did you have anything when you were coming off the end?

Mick: It felt like I had nothing. In actual fact, I did, um, and but we don't need much. And there is lots of people out there that don't have any family, and it is harder for them. Definitely it is harder, but there is support, there is help. That's why we encourage people to get professional help. But if you can get professional help from people that have actually been through it as well, then you're really getting onto something there. You're really getting amongst people that can help you. You know, nobody does this on their own. Yeah, there might be one in a million that says, 'Now I was in the depths of, you know, depravity and, and a full-blown addict, and I pulled my socks up and made a decision and got a job and turned my life around.' There's one in a million that does that, but man, they are so rare, it's ridiculous. You know, most of us, 99% of us, need a massive amount of help to do this. Cannot do it alone.

Josh: What's the conversation that's getting missed in the public eye that you're exposed to?

Mick: Uh, I just think there's a lot of, um, I think there's a lot of, um, scare tactics out there. So we know that ice has become a huge issue in, in Melbourne, in Australia. In Victoria.

Tommy: Was that around when you were dabbling?

Mick: No, no, it wasn't there.

Tommy: You weren't dabbling, you were fully in.

Mick: Yeah, I was full-blown. No, no, there was no ice then. Um, you know, the big thing then was heroin. Now, you know, heroin's kind of hit the, hit the bottom of the barrel, and, uh, and ice is there. And, um, and so that's a massive problem at the moment, but everyone's fixated on, on the scare tactics that go around that, like, oh, if anyone uses ice, they're, you know, they could chop you up, or, you know, they have a, you know, they go into an ice rage and And there is some truth to that, some truth, but everyone's fixated on fixing the ice addict by getting them off ice. And so where the concentration from the government, from the public sector, and the perception of, I think, of the general public is that if we can get that person off ice, they're going to be okay. And that actually isn't true. Getting a person off ice is detoxing them. That's not treatment. Treatment is a completely different scenario. So to just remove the substance from the body takes care of 10% of the problem. We're still left with 90% of the problem, which is within the person.

Tommy: Wow.

Mick: Okay.

Tommy: Um, we've got a methadone clinic up here, you can see on Smith Street.

Mick: Yeah.

Tommy: Is that— I mean, you just said 10% is getting them off the drug.

Mick: Yeah.

Tommy: Methadone's keeping them on a drug.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: I mean, is it a solution? Do you think that's— that's a government-run initiative, isn't it?

Mick: Yeah, yeah. So it's— so it falls into a model of care that we call harm minimisation. So any type of facility that is involved in helping people with drug and alcohol issues that's funded by the government runs a model of care called harm minimisation.

Josh: And that's about safe injecting?

Mick: Yeah, it's about minimising the harm to the person and the community, which it has its place. I'm certainly not disregarding that. It does have its place. But if we are to truly treat addiction, it is rubbish. Yeah, it's like putting Band-Aid on a gaping wound that needs surgery. All right, um, it really is. So, so a methadone clinic, it is— I'm not saying it's not needed, it is needed. I was on methadone. I was on methadone for the first 2 years of my recovery. It took me 2 years to come off it. It's such a powerful drug.

Josh: What is it, like a liquid? What, how do you— what is it? What's the consume— like, how do you consume it?

Mick: It's a liquid. So, and you mix it with a bit of cordial. Um, it's a Schedule 8 medication, so it's a really powerful— if I was to give you— I was on 40 mils of methadone. If I was to give you 40 mils of methadone right now, it'd probably kill you.

Tommy: Wow.

Mick: You would, you would most likely overdose. And is that—

Josh: you're getting the same effects that you'd get from heroin?

Mick: No, you're not meant to.

Josh: Okay.

Mick: Um, so what it does— and some people that get takeaway methadone, they go and they hit it up.

Josh: Yeah.

Mick: So we're very resourceful people, we find ways to do stuff, but But methadone, um, what it does— so, so when you use heroin, one of the big things about heroin addiction is people think you're getting a high or a low, whichever way you want to describe it, and that's a byproduct of using it. But what you're really doing when you're using heroin, it becomes a medical issue. If you don't use heroin for a certain period of time in the day, like if you go say more than 8 hours without having a shot, you start to go into severe withdrawals. Right, so medically you start to get into a fair bit of trouble within yourself. You become very ill, your mind psychologically become very bad, so you need to use heroin again to feel normal, to stop all the withdrawal symptoms, to stop the physical symptoms, and to stop your head going off.

Tommy: Can it kill you if you just try and go cold turkey?

Mick: You know what, no, it can't.

Josh: It can't.

Tommy: The pain is too bad?

Mick: It's unbelievable. The emotional, psychological, and physical pain is something that I've never— you cannot describe it unless you actually go through it yourself.

Tommy: You did it? You went, tried to go cold turkey?

Josh: I went cold turkey many times.

Tommy: Well, you see it in the movies and they're in a room. Trainspotting, he's in a room sweating and like—

Mick: that's right—

Tommy: looks like he's going through hell.

Mick: They go through hell. So methadone— and so the original reason for methadone is a harm minimization tactic. So remember, it's about minimising harm to the community as well.

Tommy: Yeah.

Mick: So, so what were all the heroin addicts doing when they're out there hanging out? They're doing stick-ups, they're doing robberies, right? They're trying to find money because you've got to use. I mean, for most addicts, if they've got running a habit You need to use between $1 and $500 of heroin a day, 7 days a week.

Tommy: It's crazy how much Uber Eats you could get with that job.

Mick: Exactly. What do you think you've got to do to get that sort of money if you don't have a job?

Tommy: Most people aren't making $500. Majority of people in the world aren't making $500.

Josh: What was your crime of choice? Is that a dumb question? Like, what was that? What was the easy way to make it? Just let him let it sit.

Mick: Crime of choice.

Josh: Crime of choice.

Mick: No, I won't get into that because there was no crime choice. I didn't want to do any of the crime that I did. I did it, I didn't have a choice. And I did whatever was available, and I was not a good person.

Tommy: You did what you could to make money to feed the habit. Do you feel, have you got guilt on all the things that you've done in your life?

Mick: No, I feel that I've paid my price. I feel that I've contributed to society. I feel that I've changed. I've made amends wherever possible. So one of the things about getting into recovery and getting well It's a bit of a process that not everyone, but a lot of us do. And, and part of that process is, is doing a, an inventory on ourselves, like a moral inventory we call it. And I go through and have a look at, you know, my conduct over my using time, and I start to, you know, get honest and get real about the harm that I've done to others. And then I start to have a look at what type of restitution needs to be made. And what type of amends can I make. In some cases it needs to be financial amends, in some cases it needs to be, you know, a personal amends, in other cases it needs to be an action amends, which means that I need to change what I do from now on and make sure that I never repeat that behaviour again. And it's a long journey, and one that, you know, I've gone on over the last 17 and a half years. And, you know, I don't hold guilt anymore around that, you know. Like I said, you know, the prison time that I'd done, I'm, you know, I'm glad I did that prison time because I really felt like I paid my price for those crimes that I did, you know. So I don't have any guilt about that now. I know that I did wrong and I know that I paid for it and, um, and, you know, and I've changed.

Tommy: How do you think you actually survived all of this?

Mick: I have no idea.

Tommy: Because I struggle with my, you know, my own life and I have— I'm not going through addiction and all these things, you know.

Josh: It's all relative as well too, right? Like, I guess it sort of, it came to you and You know, I think I was—

Mick: I think there was a lot of luck. Yeah, you know, I think that there's— I think that I've had a higher purpose, to be honest. Um, you know, one of my suicide attempts was a very serious one. You know, I, um, I've got a leg held together with screws now. Um, but I mean, I, I jumped off the Blackburn Road Bridge over the Monash Freeway into the middle lane in the middle of the night in a deliberate attempt to kill myself, and somehow survived, didn't get hit by a car, and woke up in hospital 2 days later. Um, you know, I've done, I've done a lot of things where, you know, I should not be here.

Tommy: And you shouldn't. My best mate, when he was 18, jumped off onto the Monash Freeway and died.

Mick: Really?

Tommy: Same thing.

Mick: Wow, I didn't know that.

Tommy: Yeah, and when I heard you talk about— I've heard you say that before. Fucking— yeah, it's so scary, man.

Mick: That's, you know, that's, that's the most serious attempt. How that didn't kill me, I'll never know. But I have no choice now but to believe that there's a reason why I'm here, you know. And, and going back to, you know, like we said, you know, when you get clean and sober, like once you get off the substance, surely everything's okay then, you know. A lot of people have spiritual awakenings, but in the very beginning of my recovery, I had a rude awakening. And the rude awakening was that I'd got clean and sober, but I had no money. Nowhere to live, no emotional or psychological coping skills, no, no education— left school when I was 14— no work history, a prison history, no license, no car. Um, yay, I'm clean and sober, you know what I mean? Like, I had to start from below zero. Yeah, and that was incredibly tough. But you know what, even starting from below zero was better than where I'd come from. Yeah, you know, so it's funny, you know, but, um, yeah, I don't know where I was going with that.

Josh: Where's the— what's the internal monologue? Like, what I was— I was asking about the, you know, the crime of choice. One of the things I think about is I wonder whether you, when you walk in, whether you'll, you know, look at a premises and be like, geez, that's a— the way they've got that set up, I wouldn't do it that way.

Mick: If I was using and I walked in here, yeah, I can see a million things that wouldn't be staying here. I can see that mobile phone sitting on the table there. I can see like there's just so many things I can sum up in seconds. Who's got money, who hasn't, where are they keeping it? What's going on?

Josh: What can I do? I look rich? How do I look?

Mick: You look like someone I'd like to roll.

Tommy: You got nikes on?

Josh: The funny thing is, joke's on you, I've got nothing.

Tommy: Is that street smarts? You know, you look at, oh, I haven't got intelligence, but I've got a lot of street smarts.

Mick: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, like, I, um, it's funny, you know, being from the world that I've been in And certainly prison time does this to you as well, but you just have— I don't know, you come out with a new awareness of what's around you, you know. Like, I see things happening around me that I'm sure that other people, general public, don't see, you know. Like, I can, I can tell with people who's, you know, who's a little bit hard, who isn't, who's possibly— who's done time, who hasn't done time. I can sum it all up pretty quickly, and I'm pretty accurate with it. Um, it just, it just kind of— you just get into this other realm, you know. And, and I can't ever lose that.

Tommy: Where did you learn that? Was it prison?

Mick: I believe it was prison. Prison and the streets, you know, using, using heroin and all that sort of stuff. And, but, but mainly prison. I mean, that's where you really get hardened, and that's where things really— where your insides are twisted and you, you kind of click into another realm, you know. Like, um, I remember, you know, I'll just tell you a quick storey of a time in prison. I was, um, I was not going to stop you, Mick. I was in Queensland, I was in maximum security, and it was my first day in the unit actually, and, uh, in this prison unit. And, and I got there and there was this, um, this big dark-skinned guy, he's an Islander guy, and, um, and he was huge but he was young, he's like 21, you know. I was like 28 or whatever, he was like 21, he was massive, ripped, you know, and he was easily the toughest guy in the unit. Might have been the toughest guy in the jail, right? But, um Anyway, we're in there, in there, uh, in the unit, and, um, and he comes up and he asked me for a smoke. It was my first day, so I had a pouch of Widox on me and he didn't have any smokes. And he come up and he asked me for—

Josh: What a Widox, by the way. You've mentioned it's a type of ciggy, rolling tobacco. Okay, great. I thought you might have had some sort of brand deal you hadn't told us about. Yeah, that's it. That's, that's how you finance it.

Mick: Prison ciggies.

Josh: Yeah, great.

Mick: So, um, so he asked me for a cigarette and I said— and man, cigarettes are like, that's the biggest reason for someone to get stabbed or bashed in jail, right? Like, they're just hard currency, you know. And I said no, right? Because it's all I had. I had no money, no nothing. You got to buy your own ciggies. So I had no money, nothing in my jail account. I knew I couldn't get any more cigarettes, and man, I needed those cigarettes. So I said no. And he looked at me, he said, give me a fucking cigarette. I said no. He said, give me a fucking cigarette, you dog. Now when you call someone a dog in prison— so dog means police informer— so when you call someone a dog in prison, I'm then obliged to retaliate and to retaliate violently. If I don't, I'm considered weak and I will be preyed upon and I will be bashed and taken, you know, all my possessions taken from me. So this happened. It was fortunately, it was, you know, only a few minutes before lockdown. You get locked down at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Or 4:30 in the afternoon in maximum security. So it's about quarter past 4 or something like that at dinner time. And, uh, and, and I'd refused— not— I didn't answer back at him. So he starts calling me a dog louder and louder and louder so the rest of the prisoners in the unit start to hear it. Yeah, so that's called putting someone on show. So he starts putting me on show, calling me a dog.

Josh: Middle of so many rules and shit.

Mick: There's a lot. And and I'm just absolutely fucking crumbling inside. And I knew right at that moment that I couldn't cave and give him a smoke because that's just as bad as not retaliating. So I'm caught in the position that I never wanted to be in but that I was put in. It was, you know, it was starting to get pretty sort of, you know, loud and rowdy, and then the screws yelled out, "Lockdown!" Right? So we have to go and stand in front of ourselves for lockdown. It's called muster. So we go and stand in front of ourselves for muster, and the screw comes along one by one and locks us into our cells. And it just so happens that this guy's like 2 cells down from me, right? So he's looking at me as we're standing there for muster, and he turns around to me and he runs his finger across his throat like he's going to cut my throat. And, uh, and so, so I knew that the next day when I got locked into my cell, I knew that the next day out in that prison yard, it's on. It's on like Donkey Kong, right? So I have to, I have to attack him and I have to put him in hospital or he's going to kill me, right? And so I spent the night in my prison cell absolutely shitting myself, right? Like, this guy could have just smashed me all over the place, and I knew it. But a funny thing happened to me that night. Um, that day, uh, earlier on, I'd seen my lawyer, and she told me I was looking at 5 years, right? And I just thought— to me, 5 years was like 50 years then. I just thought, my life's fucked, that's it, prison's my home. I cannot be one of these people that gets stood over, right? So I have to, I have to make a stand. And during that night, through a lot of tears and funnily enough through praying, uh, something clicked inside me and I knew, I knew that I was prepared to murder him. I just knew it. And I got my toothbrush and I started sharpening my toothbrush on the wall during the night. And I started to get more and more aware that, nah, I'm going to do this. I'm going to get him before he gets me. I sharpened it up, I held it in my hand. The screws came in the morning. They came to unlock my cell door. His would have been open first, so he'd already be out in the yard. They unlocked my cell door. I had the the, um, the homemade shiv, the homemade knife in my pocket with my hand in my pocket, like I had it cocked and ready to go. The screw opened my door, I walked out into the yard, and I was just absolutely— my heart was racing a million miles an hour, and I just went full steam out into the yard. And as I got out into the yard, there was another gentleman got in between me and the big dark guy. And got me to stop. And as it turns out, through a bit of squabbling that happened in the yard, as it turns out, this guy that got in the middle knew me from the outside, actually knew me from Melbourne. I was in Queensland at this time. Knew me from Melbourne, but he also knew the dark guy even better, and he vouched for me. And the dark guy realised that I was a friend, not a foe, and he completely backed down and he befriended me. And he protected me for my whole prison sentence.

Tommy: Wow.

Mick: We became best friends. And at the very last day when I was getting released, he came up to me and he gave me a big hug and he said, hey Mick, did anybody pick on you when you're in here? I went, nah. And he looked at me and winked at me, said, see? And he said, just don't come back here. And I was just so, you know, grateful to him, you know, like, uh, but okay, but getting back to the, to the crux of the story, something changed inside of me. Yeah, you know, like something really snapped and turned. Not because I'm a bad person, but because it's a survival mechanism. And I, and I knew that I had to— in prison, you either got to adapt to those rules and to that, to that world, if that's where you're going to live, or you're gone, you know, or your life is beyond any, you know, hell that you can imagine. Um, it's worse than being out there using.

Tommy: So did you scare yourself seeing where you could go, thinking you can murder someone?

Mick: Yeah, I scared myself, but I also— uh, it's funny that when you know that you could do that if you were put in that position, uh, it's empowering as well because a lot of the fear leaves you. You still got caution and all that sort of stuff, but I could start to be more true. I didn't have to be as fake, you know. I could start to be more of who I was. Um, for me, it was the beginning of a positive change.

Tommy: Sounds weird, I know, but it was the beginning of a positive change because it's awareness, it's internal, it's reflection, it's looking at your situations, really thinking about, yeah, what you're up against.

Mick: Well, I was put in a me or him situation, you know, that's what I felt, and, and I was. I mean, that's the way it goes in prison. I mean, anybody that's done any time that's been in any kind of situation like that will tell you the same thing. That's kind of like it's you or them.

Josh: Do you feel like you have to be sort of a mediator between, you know, With the past that you've had and the experiences, say you see, you know, rough people on the street, like if you saw something going down, what goes through your mind? What role do you think that you play in something like that?

Mick: I try not to have any role, to be honest with you. Now it's, I'm older now, you know, like I'm pushing towards 50. You know, and I was in prison in my 20s, do you know what I mean? Like, I'm a different person now. I still have that, that edge. I know I do. I know that people, some people can meet me and they just know, oh yeah, okay, there's a bit of sort of, there's something going on here. And I know that, um, but I'm not the same, you know. Like, I, I see violence now and it, it, um, it frightens me, you know. I don't want to be involved in it. I don't want to get hit and get killed, and I don't want to hurt anyone else, right? I don't want to get caught in any situations, you know, where that's going to happen. Although From time to time, you know, I've been in a couple of scrapes in my recovery and I don't like it. There's nothing good that comes from it, you know. I prefer to mediate, to talk, to find, negotiate a way out rather than, you know, do anything that's kind of violent or be involved in any kind of violence.

Tommy: Mick, you've said your daughter was an addict.

Mick: Yeah.

Tommy: You just talked about something being a moment in your life that was fucking scary.

Mick: Yeah.

Tommy: What was more scary, that moment in prison or realising your daughter's an addict and knowing the journey she's going on, she has to go on?

Mick: I don't know, I don't think I can compare the two, you know, they're from two different worlds. So I look at my life as being, you know, I'm one of the very fortunate people that's been able to live two sides of the coin. You know, I've lived in hell, but I've also had some enormous success in my life as well. You know, for me, success anyway, you know.

Tommy: Purgatory was the word I was looking for before. It's like the place between heaven and hell, so it's worse because you see—

Josh: We closed the loop. Yeah, we had to close the loop.

Mick: I was thinking about it too, to be honest with you. Glad I could put you Rest, Mick. Thank you.

Josh: So what, now, what was, what, what was the responsibility that you felt sort of as a, as an ex-addict, but also, or recover— what, what's the terminology you use? A recovering addict? Recovering addict. Having a daughter, what, what, what could you do in that situation?

Mick: Well, fortunately, I could do a lot, but one of the first things I had to do was not enable her, and I had to detach with love. I mean, that was really hard, um, but in some respects, when my daughter was using, for a lot of that, she didn't want anything to do with me. Now she just would have no contact with me, you know, and, um, and that was tough, but it was the way it was, you know. But, um, um, when she did want help, that's when I stood in. Like, the second that she said, okay, I'm ready, help me— and it kind of wasn't like that. She sent me a photo message. She'd had her head punched in. Her head was just smashed open. And, um, and she begged me for help. And, you know, and I'm fortunate that I run a rehab, you know. So I got her to meet me at the front of the rehab, and I put her in my rehab, um, and then got her to come and live with me for the first 12 months of her recovery. And, and, you know, you, you know the storey now. She's clean and sober, you know, 3 and a half years.

Josh: How's rehab changed? Like, when you, when you started, you know, doing the rehabilitation thing to now, have you learned a lot of stuff? Has it changed much, or is all the sort of core principles the same?

Mick: Core principles are are very much the same. There's a model of care that we utilise that's, um, that we know is really, really effective. It's called the Minnesota Model or the Recovery Model, or some people call it the Disease Model. Here we go, we're going to step into a quagmire of controversy here. Let's go, let's roll.

Tommy: That's what this podcast is about.

Mick: So we know that the disease of addiction is actually that— it's a disease. And people will go, well, how the fuck can it be a disease? You pick up a substance, you put it into your body, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a choice, fuck you. Yeah, all right. Um, well, you know, amazingly, that there's a lot of people around now that don't actually believe that, you know, that don't believe for that bullshit, don't believe that bullshit anymore. They understand that addiction is a disease. And one of the reasons that we know this is through, you know, extensive medical studies that have been conducted in the, in the US over a long period of time. They confirmed some facts that we as addicts have always known but have never been able to prove, and that is that the disease of addiction centres in the brain. There's a neurological pathway that's in the brain. It's, it's part of the, the pleasure-seeking neurological pathway of the brain, and there's some defects that happened in that— that happen in that neurological pathway, uh, that predispose a person to addiction. We know that when a person stops using, that those neurological pathways aren't being fulfilled. And one of the chemical, the neurochemicals that's really, really important when we talk about addiction is dopamine. You guys know what dopamine is? The feel-good? And that's that euphoric stuff. So anybody that suffers from addiction has an overload of dopamine that's released into their brain. And that's where that euphoria and that just who gives a fuck, that, you know, the no care factor. All of that sort of stuff comes in. And so when a person is, you know, deprives themselves of that dopamine dump in their brain, that's where the psychological and emotional side of addiction starts to come to the surface. Because what that dopamine does is it, it medicates the thinking and it medicates the emotions to help the person escape. So it's not necessarily the substance, although that's playing a part, that does it. The substance triggers a dopamine dump within the brain. And that dopamine dump is what gives them a relief from the obsessional thinking and relief emotionally. When a person just puts the substance down, they're left with no dopamine.

Josh: They've got a hole, basically. They're in a deficit.

Mick: Yeah. And all of their emotional baggage and their psychological, um, uncomfort comes to the surface. And if you can imagine, you know, people that are caught in the cycle of addiction, they're acting, reacting, doing and saying things that cause deep-seated guilt, shame, remorse. Regret, depression, anxiety, fear. You know, the list goes on. I could list 100 things, and that's all part of the baggage of the addict. So when it's— so quite often when a person just puts the substance down but they don't get treatment, they move into a state of what we call white-knuckle sobriety. And white-knuckle sobriety is when you're going, you're clenching your fist and you're clenching your ass cheeks, you're going, yeah, I'm not drinking, I'm not using, I don't even miss it. And then someone slams the door or beeps a horn and throw the fucking table in the air and you go, fuck you. Yeah, and you walk out the door and you go and use and drink again. Yeah, you go, how the fuck did that happen? It's because of all of this uncomfortability which has always been there, but it's just, it's just accumulated more and more and more along the way. It's all still there and it's undealt with.

Josh: Yeah, either when you— having had the past that you have, when you hear people quitting sugar, do you roll your eyes or do you actually related, you know, that sugar's the new fucking, what do they say? It has the same reaction as, you know, taking coke or stuff like that. Do you, you know, what do you—

Tommy: I don't think he's, you're not admitting people in with sugar addiction.

Mick: True, true, true.

Josh: But are there other addictions?

Mick: Not at this point.

Josh: Are there other addictions? What sort of, who are you treating? Clearly not the I Quit Sugar, Sarah Wilson's got that covered. But yeah.

Mick: Well, gambling's a big one. Sex addiction. Yeah, you know, um, look, look, we talk, we joke about sugar, but you know, eating disorders, I mean, they're a massive thing and they all fall back to addiction. Yeah, you know, um, there's lots of stuff. Anything could become problematic, you know. Um, we're talking about training before and that sort of stuff. I mean, that can become problematic. People can get obsessed with it and their emotional and psychological well-being, you know, um, concentrated on whether or not they can train, and then they get an injury and they can't train and they find they have a huge psychological and emotional down point, which then places them in a position where they're more susceptible to go turn towards other things. It's amazing.

Josh: It scares the fuck out of me, all this stuff. And it's the, 'cause I know that with my experiences with food and all that sort of thing, it's the, yeah, I'm constantly aware, like I don't drink alcohol. It wasn't a specific choice, it wasn't a specific, you know, moment where, you know, I became— everyone assumes when I say I don't drink, they're like, oh, when, you know, when, when we were an alcoholic, basically, right? People in Australia sort of—

Mick: if you don't drink, you must be an alcoholic.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. So it's, um, yeah, addiction, it's a, it's a scary thing, mate.

Tommy: You said before that, you know, um, some of those times when you really hit rock bottom and you kind of saw it as a sign that you survived as, you know, it's a reason for being here, whether it's a storey or whether it's true. You've done amazing things, mate.

Mick: Thank you.

Tommy: Congrats. I've actually met someone who went through the dayhab.

Josh: Oh really?

Tommy: And they're killing it.

Josh: And, um, in all the right ways.

Tommy: Kill it, like when you say killing it with killing it, business owner, just, you know, clear. And so yeah, it works.

Mick: Yeah.

Tommy: And, um, yeah, it's been so good having you on the podcast.

Josh: Yeah, thanks for sharing your story. Uh, it's a daily talk show, everyone. Send us an email, hi@thedailytalkshow.com, if you've got guest suggestions too, because this podcast is about just interesting people who have something to share. And I think it's great to have people like you, Mick, on who can give us— put a voice, put, you know, a face to, you know, these issues so we can actually like empathise and make the right choices to be able to help the people around us as well.

Mick: Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Josh: And also like internally as well, like, yeah, I can take so much out of all this as well. So thanks so much.

Tommy: Thanks, buddy.