Peter’s journey: homelessness and addiction to supporting others

Peter Lane outside his workplace, which used to be his home. Image: Kirralee Nicolle

BY KIRRALEE NICOLLE

Twenty years ago, Peter Lane spent several months living in what is now The Salvation Army’s Towards Independence Sobering-Up Unit next to Adelaide’s Whitmore Square. At the time, Peter was homeless and facing addiction. Today, Peter is a qualified Support Worker with The Salvation Army. The Sobering Up Unit is now his workplace.

When I met him for our interview, we sat in a very significant part of the building for Peter, in what is now Team Leader Kirsten Pennington’s office. Peter shows me around what was once his home for about six months, which has now been converted into three separate spaces.

“There were four of us guys. We had a corner each. This was my bedroom. This corner,” he says, gesturing around Kirsten’s office.

It’s also the room where Peter interviewed for his placement, which later became his job.

I ask him if that felt strange. But for him, he says it felt really good. He tells me that when he first began studying to become a Support Worker, it was The Salvation Army, and the Sobering-Up Unit specifically that most drew him as a place to eventually work.

“They were here for me when I needed; it didn’t matter if I was in the middle of active addiction. They were here for me. And I think people need that. I needed it,” he says.

In 2005, Peter was part of a pilot program for addressing addiction and homelessness, and over the years following, he found himself back at The Salvation Army dealing with addiction-related illness.

After encountering The Salvation Army, Peter began studying at TAFE, initially pursuing a Certificate 3 and 4 in Community Service, followed by a Certificate 4 in Alcohol and Other Drugs, and is now working towards his Certificate 4 in Mental Health.

But it hasn’t always been easy. Peter has now been sober for six years, but his life prior to that had been marked by recurring bouts of addiction.

“My first Cert 3, I had to get them to print everything out for me,” Peter says. “I couldn't learn off the computer screen. Now I can do it all on computer.”

At 54, Peter is experiencing a new lease on life, with sobriety, a new career, and a restored relationship with a very important person in his life. Both Peter’s parents are now deceased, and while he grieves that they cannot see the change in his life, his belief in their ongoing presence is strong.

“They never got to see me doing what I’m doing now, but I’m sure they can [see],” he says.

When Peter was born, his mother was hospitalised for an extended period with complications from the birth, so the primary caretaker in his early days was his older sister, who was in her early 20s at the time and pregnant with her first child. Peter says their relationship was very close as a result, but once he started experiencing addiction, that connection broke down.

“During my struggles with drugs, we sort of lost contact because she wasn’t putting up with it, and I didn’t want to put that crap onto her life,” he says. “We were [estranged] for nearly 30 years, but everything’s back to normal and great now.

“That’s my closest thing to my parents. We see each other for lunch every week.”

For Peter, his experience of addiction feels particularly heartbreaking because his first exposure to drugs was marijuana, offered to him during his school years by a close friend who never went on to face addiction like Peter did. For Peter, smoking marijuana as a young teenager led to taking methamphetamines as an 18-year-old. Then, he turned to IV drug use. He believes a family history of addictive tendencies played a part in how he responded to drugs as a teenager.

As a young hairdresser, Peter and his partner had three children before the relationship broke down, and Peter became a single dad. Later, Peter’s drug use accelerated, so he returned the children to their mother, and soon after, he became homeless.

He describes the experience of homelessness as “the worst”.

“Alone,” he says. “It was scary. It was something that I’d never been through and didn’t know who to reach out to.”

This was a far cry from Peter’s upbringing, where he had never been exposed to homelessness or lack. Peter’s upbringing was, in his words, “perfect”.

“I used to complain when I was younger that I had older parents, that’s the only thing I complained about,” he says. “I had the perfect parents, perfect family, everything.”

And it was family that motivated Peter to eventually go cold turkey. He says that while The Salvation Army’s Towards Independence program gave him all the tools he needed to de-program his brain from drugs, it took him 13 years to fully complete the process.

“My children started using drugs, and I couldn’t tell them they were idiots,” he says.

Peter began to wonder about the impacts of addiction down the generations, and as his children faced their own addiction journeys, he pondered whether his grandchildren would also know the pain of such a debilitating illness.

“That was enough for me. Overnight, I just stopped,” he says.

Peter says the greatest thing The Salvation Army offered him through the years of addiction was knowing that someone was there to help, whenever he needed.

“The main thing was having the support and having someone there when you wanted to reach out to someone,” he says.

Peter says the staff at the Sobering-Up Unit, including Kirsten and Program Manager AOD Services Tania Sharp, have always been really supportive of him, and that he is loving “every minute” of his work supporting clients.

“I'm learning heaps from the fantastic team here,” he says. “I'm always in awe of how they treat the clients, how they work, their professionalism, everything.

“I’m just glad to be a part of it.”

Kirsten says having Peter come on board as a volunteer for his placement was a new initiative for the Unit, and having him around had been a “fantastic” opportunity for the team and clients.

“It’s been amazing to watch Peter just become so much more confident and enthusiastic,” she says.