December 9, 2025 • 45 mins
In this powerful episode, Adam reunites with Tom De Souza, a young man he first met a decade ago while documenting Tom’s descent into methamphetamine addiction in the podcast Meth Destruction. Tom was just 13 when he spiralled from scholarship student to juvenile detention, drug use and violent crime.
Now 30, Tom has found sobriety, purpose, and a sense of home within himself. He’s travelled the world, become a journalist, and is directing a feature documentary — The Long Road Home — exploring identity, redemption and his journey across Indonesia by motorbike. In a raw and deeply moving conversation, Adam and Tom reflect on the moments that saved him, the ones that nearly destroyed him, and the friendships that shaped both paths.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appoche production. This podcast includes references to drug use, youth suicide,
and violent crime. It's not recommended for younger audiences and
listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand.
I'm your host, Adam Shand. If you enjoy our content,
(00:28):
please subscribe, like, and share to support more independent crime journalism.
Youth crime is the hot issue in Australia right now.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Victoria is cracking down on youth offenders, with children as
young as fourteen facing the possibility of being jailed for
life for violent crime.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Day after day, we read stories of angry, disaffected young
people committing violent, senseless crimes, often while under the influence
of drugs like methamphetamine or ice.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Destroying families, causing carnage on our roads, and murder in
our homes.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
This is a bleak story of family breakdown, alienation from
education and employment, and offenders consigned to a revolving door
of the criminal justice system.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Ice is ripping through rural and regional areas, devastating entire towns.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
But today I'm not here to wring my hands and
add to this council of despair, because I've witnessed the
miraculous possibilities of hope and redemption. I met my guest
ten years ago when he was turning his life around
from is addiction and crime. Back then, I made a
podcast with Tom Desuza called Meth Destruction, which detailed his
(01:41):
descent into that hellish world. Fortunately meth did not destroy Tom,
but it did come very close. He got his life
back on track and is now making a documentary film
about riding a motorcycle across Indonesia. He's living a life
of grace and possibility that he could scarcely have imagined
back in the dark days of his early teens. And
(02:04):
it's my great pleasure to speak with you again, Tom Adam,
how's it going? Amazing? What comes to mind is that
Bob Dylan's song A Hard Range is going to fall
on the line where have you been, my blue eyed son?
And it really applies to your journey. You're living in
an extraordinary life now. Like I said, could you have
(02:26):
imagined where you are today back in those early days.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Back in those days, I remember my drug dealer telling
me if anybody made it to twenty five, you're a survivor.
There weren't many of us who made it past twenty five,
So no, not at all. You know, if you ask
me back then, I'd be surprised to know that I'd
even still be alive.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Because looking at you, I don't see any of the effects.
I mean, you describe yourself as a junkie before. You
don't look like that, you don't act like that. You've
really managed to get through this on the surface unscathed. Obviously,
these things do leave impacts. But I guess you've been
pretty lucky.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, for sure, I have been lucky, and I guess
the version of success I've been able to achieve. I
actually went in a couple of years ago and saw
a drug counselor who was my counselor when I was
going through rehap and youth detox and that kind of thing,
and she said, it's actually quite remarkable what's happened, because
oftentimes success for a lot of people who came out
(03:23):
of drug addiction it's just the ability to hold down
a job or a relationship. And yeah, I guess I've
been able to take it to the next level and
build a pretty extraordinary life, which I'm really grateful for.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah, it is extraordinary. And I think we're often sold
a message that is somewhat a miracle story that life
after drugs is going to be perfect if you do
these things and you stay on the program. But of
course life still intervenes. There's still the problems of life
to deal with, and getting off drugs and out of
(03:56):
crime is just one more stop on the journey. Do
you feel like that that you still sort of a
work in progress? Things are still happening, You're still sorting
out life for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
That's life, isn't it? You know? That's life for everybody.
Life isn't easy. Life is hard, and there are a
lot of trials and challenges and things that everybody goes
through on the way. And I guess for me, as
a child and as a teenager, drugs for my escape
from that and my means of coping with that. But
I learned a lot of hard lessons at a pretty
young age. Whereas I think some of the challenges and
(04:28):
struggles in life, I think a lot of people go
through life maybe not being able to deal with those
things and finding other escapes, whether that's in work, in sex,
or alcoholism, or I guess everybody has their own kind
of form of escape. And I think I learned a
lot of these lessons at a young age, and that's
equipped me pretty well.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, I won't start on my various additions and passions
and obsessions which I've used to get through nearly forty
years of journalism. And we're actually here in Balley. So
if you do hear motorbikes in the background, scooters and things,
I'm not going to stop with them because there's just
too many of them. If you'll have to put up
with the listeners. But I've been giving you a hand
with your film, and part of the exercise was to
make an outline of all the material you have shot
(05:08):
over nearly two years and then cut it up into
bits and put it on the floor. And I was
looking at your life on the floor, which has included
all the dark times, how you got into drugs and crime,
and how you've got out and where your journey's taken you.
Let's go back to the beginning of that, because your
story begins in a middle class family in England with
(05:28):
all the advantages, but then things began to go wrong.
Tell us a bit about that.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I had a pretty privileged life, was one of four kids.
Dad worked a good job, Mum worked as a vet
and I kind of grew up having all the modern
day trappings. I guess, you know, I had a good education.
I took French lessons and swimming lessons and tennis lessons,
and as far as I knew, it was part of
a happy, unified family.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
But then things began to go wrong. Dad was working
in the financial industry. The stock market crash came and
you guys, return to your family's native home, Perth, and
you struggled to fit in. You've never found Perth was
home even to this day, and cracks began to appear
in that middle class facade.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
What happened, Well, I think, you know, it's a pretty
difficult thing to mobilize a family of six people and
move them across to the other side of the world.
And I think Mum and Dad had this idea of
how things might look on the reality turned out to
be really different. Dad struggled to find work, I struggled
to fit in, and I guess I felt different from
(06:35):
everybody else, and I found myself in a place where
that difference wasn't really celebrated or encouraged, and as a result,
I started to hate myself and be unhappy with who
I was and to feel uncomfortable in my own skin.
So I set about trying to destroy myself literally.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
And you're a gifted student, You've got a scholarship to
a prestigious school. You didn't fit in. You saw your
name up on the on a board in gold letters,
and that was a source of bullying for you. Your
response was to try to burn the school down.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. That was how much I hated
that place. You know, I went to the school on
the weekend. I was just skateboarding with a friend. I
didn't go there with that specific intention, but I was
there at the school, and you know, I guess all
these visceral feelings just I saw a pile of leaves
on the veranda outside the headmaster's office, and yeah, all
these feelings just compelled me to go and hold a
(07:27):
cannadioda and a lighter up to the leaves. And yeah,
luckily the grounds keeper saw us and chased us away
before anything went up in flames. But I wasn't happy
at that place. I didn't like it. And I guess,
like I said, I was uncomfortable in my own skin,
and I sought solitude out on the margins of society.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, and you went a good crook because you didn't
look for the CCTV camera, which gave you up straight away,
so you were immediately turned in And that was the
beginning of the end for you at that school. I
think you were expelled went it.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah, Yeah, I was expelled and I went to eight
or nine different schools in total, so I moved around
a lot, and there was definitely a feeling of dislocation,
and I think, you know, there was a sense of
instability at school, and there was a sense of instability
at home as well. Mum and Dad's relationship was starting
to get pretty rocky. Dad had gone to work in
Hong Kong and then come back, and we also weren't
(08:17):
really sure of our future in Perth. We'd just moved
from London. We'd been back in Perth through about three years,
and there was talk of moving again to Sydney or
Melbourne or somewhere else. And I didn't really feel a
sense of stability. And I moved through all these schools
and it started to think, well, what's the point of
making friends and investing in this place when we might
just move again.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah, and you're looking for a sense of ease and
comfort within yourself. You discover marijuana, You smoke a bit
that for a while, and then you decided to go
on to caffeine pills, of all things, and you and
your mate steal from the supermarket a whole bunch of
cap I don't if caffeine pills are still available, don't
go looking for them if you listen to this podcast.
But see you crush all these pills up. You know,
white powder, I don't know didn't have any effect on
(08:59):
m Sure it would have. But and your mother finds
the bag of white powder hidden in a drum kit
at home. And I don't blame any parent for being
alarmed when they think their kids falling into drug addiction
or hard drugs and so forth. But she did make
a telling decision because rather than deal with it within
the family, what did she do?
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, she called the police. This was sort of two
thousand and eight. It was kind of around the time
when ice was just starting to sort of become prolific
in Perth and in Australia. And I'd heard on the
radio that ice was being made from these cold and
flu pills which kind of had pseudoeffortrine as a base ingredient.
You know, I sort of thought, oh, well, you know,
if I crushed them up and put them in with
(09:38):
the caffeine pills, maybe that'll have some effect as well.
And so yeah, she called the police, and the police
came and did a kind of preliminary test on them,
and obviously, because it had the base ingredient of methamphetamine,
it responded to the test. And so they charged me
with dealing ice and sent me to juvenile attention. And
my parents were at their wits end. They didn't know
what to do. They sought the guidance of the police,
(09:59):
who they figured were experienced in these kinds of things.
But I think juvenile at tension had the complete opposite
effect to what was intended. It instilled in me this
hatred of authority. It made me even more angry, and
it told me that society rejected me and didn't accept me.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And your parents had given you up, lagged you to
the cops, and there you are, and you go on
from scholarship student to juvenile detention in Range View in Perth.
That first night is burned in your memory.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah, yeah, it is. It was a pretty horrific place.
You know, I was putting this observation cell. It's about
eight or nine cells in a semicircle around this kind
of central control room or with kind of like a fishbowl,
I guess, or with this you know, big floor to
ceiling perspex window. And there was blood and graffiti and
kind of dried toilet paper all over the wall. Lights
(10:49):
were on twenty four hours a day, and the aircom
was turned up full bast and just the screaming and
the yelling and the shouting coming from the other cells,
and there was a girl in the cell next to
me who's just smashing her head against the wall until
she cracked the glass. And the next morning we was
sort of woken up and strip searched and showered and
got prepared to go to court. And I remember sitting
(11:10):
in this little two by three meters sell with about
ten other people that I think I was one of
only two white kids in that cell. All of these
other guys in there were quite a bit older and
violent criminals as well, carthieves and robbers, and you know,
they were sitting there telling these stories. I could hardly
even understand the whether that they spoke and how well
(11:30):
were you I was thirteen thirteen.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, little Lord Fauntleroy. Yeah, thrown in with the hardened
criminals at thirteen.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Well, yeah, you know, all of a sudden, I had
to try and adapt myself to this environment and this
is a place that I'd found myself and I had
to try and fit in.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
And how long was that stint?
Speaker 3 (11:45):
That was only one night. I was bailed. I was
bowed to my parents. I think they thought that by
working with the court they might be able to try
and take back some kind of semblance of control that
they hadn't before. But going to juvenile attention had the
complete opposite effect to what was intended.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
And they were certainly working hard they were doing with them.
And that's the thing. I don't blame it. Like I
said before, I don't blame any parent going through the
for the first time looking at the range of solutions
open to them and realizing it's beyond their understanding, and
they look for institutional solutions. The next one was drug rehab,
which ironically was a window to hard drugs and criminal
(12:21):
connections which would sustain you over the next several years.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yeah. No, that's right. I've breached my boil conditions and
was sent back to juvenile's attention sort of two or
three more times in the couple of months after that
first night, and eventually there was no one in my
family who could really be responsible for me or take
care of me. Everybody just thought I was too out
of control, and so I was sent to go and
stand this drug rehab. For three months, I lived in
(12:45):
this house in one of the outer suburbs of Perth.
I was surrounded by older, more experienced drug users, and
you know, they became like my family in a sense.
Had to try and adapt myself, to make myself fit
into that place and try and find a sense of
belonging there. And I did that by listening to their
stories and the things that they'd been through and trying
to copy them and repo them and pretend that I
(13:06):
was one of them as well. And you pretend for
long enough to try and be someone, eventually you become
that person. And that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
And these are your formative years. I mean, you've got
no other example. You're trying to make your way.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
What happened next I got out of drug rehab I
think just after my fourteenth birthday. My parents were divorced
not long after, so.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
They're busy with their own issues now, and they've got
this troublesome child, Tommy. We've also got the three other
children to look after and to deal with. Yeah, so
a lot was going on.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Yeah, I went looking for drugs. I had the means
to go and find them now, and you know, I'd
heard all these stories about them. I was curious about them,
and I wanted to know what it was all about.
You know, I'd spent three months in there listening to
these kids tell stories about getting high on ice and
going out and stealing cars and all these kinds of
things that they made sound really exciting, and Sanator Hall
a lot better than what I was going back to
(13:57):
where I was. So I was curious and I went
looking for it.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And you found it how I found it.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I started with drugs like heroin, an oxyconton and these things.
I didn't really like it. It made me sick, it
made me its year. It wasn't really what I was
looking for. I enjoyed the rush that I got from it,
but not really the high. You know, I kind of
enjoyed the first five minutes after injecting the drug, but
then afterwards when you sort of started to feel a
bit stoned. I didn't really like that. I didn't really
(14:22):
want to go to sleep and numb myself. I wanted
to kind of bring myself up out of myself. And
then through a friend of a friend, I was introduced
to another drug dealer who was twenty years older than me,
and he introduced me to ice and started schooling me
in crime.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And he was like your fagin to your all over twist. Yeah,
and he was an odd character. He was obviously been
right through the mill of criminality and drugs and mental
disorder as well.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
He had. He'd been injecting ice for twenty years. He
was obsessed with stal wars figures and skulls which used
to swap for ice. And he schooled me in crime
and this criminal mentality and taught me how to deal
drugs and also how to survive in this world. Like
I guess he took me under his wing in a sense,
and maybe, you know, I thought he had the kind
of sense of duty to protect me or help me
(15:08):
in this world of violence and crime. And yeah, he
scored me and showed me the ropes.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I in no way condone this sort of drug use,
but I think it's true to say that individuals find
the drug that best suits their needs and for whatever reason,
ice was that for you? Why?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah, people definitely go looking for particular drugs for particular reasons.
And I definitely suffered from a lack of self confidence.
I didn't like the person that I was, and I
brought me up and out of that, and it kind
of instilled this false kind of confidence in me and
made me feel on top of the world, and it
made me feel good about myself. That that was really
(15:47):
the addiction for me. That was what I was really
looking for.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
And you were injecting it, which is not usually the
way that young people are introduced to it. They tend
to smoke it and so forth. But what was the
difference with injecting it?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Things escalated pretty quickly. Things escalated really quickly with me.
And that's I think the sensation that you get from
injecting the drug is far more potent and powerful. I've
never experienced anything else in my life like that. That's
so instant and just you know, I think smoking it,
that sensation is definitely more addictive. But I think the
actual ritual of smoking ice is a more repetitive kind
(16:24):
of ritual. You know, you continue smoking it and smoking
and smoking it, and you know, you almost get addicted
to just the smoking of it, whereas injecting it, you
have one shot and that's it and you're good for
another eight hours, and you know, you spend that other
eight hours sort of chasing enough money to go and
get more. And that, for me, that was a real
part of the addiction, That whole ritual and the chase,
the thrill of the chase, you know, the ice, the
(16:45):
drug itself was just something that kind of kept that
whole show going.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
And Madow, as you said, was now showing you how
to get money and the crimes that would achieve that.
For you, what were you up to in terms of
your criminal pursuits.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I was selling drugs and you know, using the profits
to buy ice. I was stealing a lot. I was
just basically getting money however I could. And I didn't
really care who I stole it off, or where it
came from, or what I was doing. I just all
I really thought about was that next shot from your family. Yeah,
I stole from people I loved and who were close
to me.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
How do you feel about that now?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Pretty ashamed? That's not something I'm proud of. It's something
I regret because.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
This is the process that occurs where people fall to
this addiction and steal from family, and that creates more
distance and mistrust between the family, which actually accentuates all
the issues going on.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Well that's right, Yeah, it just kind of perpetuates the problem,
you know, you know, it makes you feel even worse
about yourself. And because you feel worse about yourself, I
would go and try and block those feelings out in
the only way in which I knew how to deal
with them, which is by taking more drugs. And it's
just this kind of cycle that kept going around and
round and round and faster and faster, and you know,
there's no real way of stopping it.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Things became violent as well. You ripped off some guys
with some drugs that weren't drugs.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah. I was exposed to violence from a pretty young age,
and at first time I was in juvenile attension, I
was exposed to a lot of violence, and I guess
that became something that informed the way that I behave
and the way that I reacted to things. That world
is a pretty violent world as well. The first time
I really got bashed was in a range of Juvenile
Detention Center. I was thirteen years old. I've got a
(18:29):
ping pong table smashed over my head for not really
any reason at all, just because I was on the
oval laughing with the mate and this other guy had
broken the rules and lost his power for the evening
and he sort of took it out on me. You know,
he had to go at me on the oval and
said I'll wait until we get back to the unit,
and I kind of didn't think anything of it. And
you know, a couple of hours later, I'm sitting there
(18:50):
in the unit waiting to play ping pong and him
and three of his cousins come running around the corner
and just picked me up and threw me on top
of this ping pong table and smashed it over my
head for no reason at all. Really, I'm just sitting
there laughing with a mate, having a good time, and
you know, suddenly I was exposed to this world of violence.
And violence, I guess, is a language that knows no
logic or no reason. There's no real way to respond
(19:14):
to it other than with that language of violence itself.
And that was something that I had to learn and adopt.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And you were involved in violent incidents that you initiated.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeah, yeah, there are a few robberies. And yeah, I think,
like a lot of young men, I had a lot
of things confused. Kindness could be easily confused for weakness,
and I had fear confused with respect as well. And
I think, you know, that was how that world worked.
If people were afraid of you, that was kind of
considered as respect. It's, oh, you know, this guy's so
and so, and nobody wants to go near him, and
(19:45):
he's you know, he's a big figure. And yeah, that
was that was something that I had confused, Like a
lot of young misguided men.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
You're moving down this path and you're not happy about it.
You're not happy in any sense. You're becoming more depressed
and anxious. You know, the more drugs you have, the
more you have to have. And you thall me were
quite of steep depression.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Yeah, I mean, I've got to admit it's deep within.
I wasn't happy, I wasn't content, I wasn't fulfilled. But
this life was also exciting as well, and it kind
of presented, I guess, something of an antidote to that depression.
I mean, it definitely perpetuated as well because of the
drugs that I was taking, the things that they were doing.
That was no solution for the way I felt. But
(20:26):
it was also exciting. It was an adventure and it
took me away from the way that I felt. And
it wasn't just the drugs that I did that. It
was the lifestyle that went along with that too. You know.
It was going out and stealing things and staying out
late and seeing what kinds of trouble we could get
ourselves into and how we could source money to go
and get our next shot of ice or Yeah, in
a way, it was. It was its own kind of
(20:48):
sordid adventure, I guess.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
And you're becoming a better crook because you weren't getting
caught as much and you weren't doing more juvenile attention.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, I was being schooled in that, so I understood
how to be a better criminal. And you know, things
had happened and I'd learned from that experience. Is one
example where I ripped these guys off for an amount
of drugs and a week later they set me up
in the park and bashed me and stripped me of
everything and broke my jaw with bricks and star pickets
and ride and pushed back over my face. And I
spent the next six weeks eating out of a straw,
(21:18):
and Madaw kind of tried to school me in a
way that taught me how to be better. He taught
me how to be different and how to avoid those
things from happening, and what I could do next time.
And yeah, I started, Yeah, I started learning from those things,
and I guess becoming a better criminal one soon.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Rain's falling now outside, it's certainly a steamy, wet day
here in Bali. How did you see the future. If
you did see the future, were you just living day
to day in a kind of almost an animalistic survival mode.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yeah, I was just reacting to urges and instincts. Really,
I didn't think about the future. I didn't have any
goals or ambitions or long term plans or you know.
All I cared about was that particular moment and what
I could get in my lungs or in my arm
or Yeah, the future wasn't really a prospect for me
at all.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
And what was happening with your relationship with family through this?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
It completely fallen apart. My mum and dad both had
pretty different ways of responding to it. Mum's I guess,
always been a pretty determined person and someone who's tried
to grab the problem and sort of try and steer
it in the right direction, whereas my dad was a
bit more hands off.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
He knew that there wasn't a lot that he could do,
and I guess he tried to keep me close and
maybe try and guide me back down, try and guide
me down to rock bottom so it'd be there to
help me push back up once I was there. But
I guess deep in this hole and just kept digging
this hole deeper, and no matter how much people tried
to reach down and help pull me out, didn't want
(22:44):
the help. I wouldn't accept their help. I was stuck.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
I remember your father telling me that he dreamt or
imagined himself standing at the edge of your grave.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah, her dad did say that to me once, and
I think Mum said that she kind of always knew
that I would be okay, And Dad said he felt
a similar way as well, up until that point where
I had that dream. And I think he got to
a point where he started to become really afraid.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And you were becoming afraid or depressed to the point
where the adventure was souring, and you also tried to
take your own life.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, yeah, I did. I guess three incidents I can
remember that were really pivotal moments in this I guess
that made me understand that I needed to change my life.
The first was a psychotic episode. I'd been awake for
ten days on ice and went running around the streets
with a meat cleaver, chasing somebody who wasn't there. And
(23:41):
the second, Yeah, I was trying to change but couldn't
do it. It was all too hard, and so I tried
to hang myself off the beam in my mum's garage,
and the beam snapped out of the wall as I
was hanging.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
We talked about this this morning, and I could see
that it came back to you in a very visceral way.
And I guess, as we reflect here about what you've achieved,
since you think this wouldn't have occurred had that beam
not snapped. How close you were to snuffing at you
all your potential. How do you reflect on that now?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Well, it's true, it's a difficult thing to go back
and revisit all this. You know, I've come a long
way since a lot of that, and yeah, it's a
part of me. It's an experience that I've lived that
I guess has shaped my outlook on the world and
the person that I am. But also I tried it
to let that define me as well. And there are
many other things that I've done and many other things
that I'm doing that contribute to the person that I
(24:31):
am and the person I've become. It is hard to
go back and revisit these things and pull myself back
into that particular moment. It's not a pleasant one and
it's a difficult place to go, for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
It is. It really isn't for me When I when
we talked about this morning, it was real for me
in a way that it wasn't before. When I see
what you've done since, and I'm so grateful that fortune
was in your favor at that moment and you have
moved on. But there's still some legacies of those choices
and the relationships you had, in particular your best mate Sam,
(25:07):
who's still in jail to this day serving a life
sentence for murder.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, I guess you know, there were definitely a handful
of fork in the road kind of moments along the way,
and I don't know if you've ever seen that movie
The Butterfly Effect, where all these different potential outcomes for
the way that a life can look based on different
decisions in one particular moment. And I guess in the
(25:33):
past I've looked back at some of those moments and gone, well,
what if this had happened or what if that had happened?
But you know, I also believe that everything happens the
way that it should, and that you know, our lives
are destined to a particular course. To some extent, that
murder that Sam committed was definitely one of those moments
(25:53):
where I had started to turn the corner. Sam was
my best friend. He was still kind of stuck in
that world, and just after he committed the murdery he
called me and asked for my help. You know, I
waited for him to come and help, and eventually he
decided that no, he didn't want to drag me into that.
And you know, he was eventually arrested and convicted and
(26:13):
received a life sentence. Whereas you know, one really vivid
moment that this up, I guess was I remember just
after he had been arrested and was on remand in
Haykia prison, and I just got my driver's license, and
I was driving down the coast to you on the
first weekend surfing trip away with my mates, and we
(26:33):
drove past a turn off to where Sam had gone
and buried the body and kept driving and went surfing
and had a good weekend away.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
And I want to go into the circumstances of the
mentor of book. If you want to go back to
meth destruction, you can hear more about that. I don't
think it's worth going back over detail of that, but
there was a critical moment where Sam decided not to
involve you, not to come and get you, which would
have made you an accessory to that murder while disposing
of the body.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
You owe a lot, I guess I do in a sense,
you know, I don't know if I owe him a lot,
as in I feel indebted to him in a way,
but I have a lot to thank him for and
I'm grateful for the decision that he made for choosing
not to drag me into that.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, there was a moment where when he were talking
to Sam over a video call, and he was sitting
there in his green T shirt classic in mat garb
and you're sitting there in your green rip curl T shirt. Balley,
I said to you, circumstances were different, there'd be no
rip curl BALLEI on that green. It just be a
green T shirt and haking a prison.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, both wearing very different shades of greener.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
And he's had to confront the consequences of his decisions.
I feel like you've been living some of his life
for him, and you've kept your relationship. And I think
one thing that really really touched my heart was when
he said that a lot of his friends and family
have dropped off and you've stuck with him. So I
think there is a debt of gratitude at least.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Well, I think there was a connection and there was
something that we share, and I guess, you know, we
both lived experiences that not a lot of other people
can relate to, and since that murder, we've both been
on our own journeys and I think both of those
journeys have played out in similar ways, albeit in very
different circumstances. And you know, there are not a lot
(28:22):
of other people I find who can relate to those experiences.
You know, people can listen to them and be enthralled
by them. But you know how many people can actually
understands There's very few. You know, my younger brother's one
and Sam's another. And yeah, it's just he gets it.
He understands. And I think we've both been on our
own journeys in uncovered similar wisdoms and insights into ourselves
(28:46):
and the world around us, but just in our own
different ways.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Because he said to you that he feels like he's
in the place that he needs to be, which sounds
perverse to people from the outside who'd want to be
in prison, but that has been He's ten years older
than you, by the way, he's just turned forty. Yeah,
and a big chunk of his life has been spenting there.
He's found a way to retain hope.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
I remember saying that to him. I remember saying, oh,
you know that I was proud of him and despite
the circumstances, I was proud of the person who had
become in the journey that he'd been on. And he
responded to that pretty abruptly. He said, you need to
change that way of thinking. You know. It's these circumstances
are not necessarily bad, he said to me, this is
(29:31):
exactly where I need to be. This is what was
supposed to happen, and this is life exactly it was
as it was planned out for me, and I'm exactly
in the place that I need to be, where I
was able to uncover the lessons which I needed to uncover,
you know. And he said that as a prisoner he
often goes through that same experience of he's got a
(29:52):
lot of time to think, and he thinks a lot
about what would have happened if I did this differently
or did that differently. And I think he's made peace
with that and come to terms with it, you know,
he's asked himself, well, you know, you can't think like that,
because who knows if he would even still be here
if that murder hadn't have happened and he hadn't been
arrested and gone to prison. Who knows if he would
(30:12):
even still be alive.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Because that is certainly a feature of some people's prison experiences.
Once they're behind bars and they come down off the drugs,
they get sober, they get the insight. And I've dealt
with this many times with prisoners I've corresponded with, and
they have great clarity and they can articulate things that
they never could before while they're in that animalistic survival
(30:34):
mode that you know all so well. And also I
reflect on the fact that those fourteen years that he's
spent inside, you've been turning your life around and making
a successive things. All those waves you've caught, all those
places you've been, the insights you've had. As you say,
you've come to a similar place, but through very different circumstances.
(30:55):
Sam is now hopefully will be released in the coming years.
What will be your relationship with him from here on
and what will you share with him? How do you
see the future with him?
Speaker 3 (31:07):
I think of that world of drugs that I was
involved in. Sam as the only person that I've kept
in contact with. I think him and I shared something
that went far deeper than just the drugs. I think
a lot of other friends I had that was all
we really had in common, that was all we had
to connect over, whereas Sam and I shared something much deeper.
And I know for Sam that the real struggle will
(31:31):
come when he gets out of prison. You know, he's
spent almost a whole lifetime in there. You know he's
going to come out and find a very different world,
and I wonder how some of the hopes and dreams
that he has us. You know, I think he's also
going to find some disappointment as well. I do worry
for him when he'll get out, and what will come
(31:52):
of his life, and what he'll be able to make
of his life, and what kind of future awaits him
outside of those prison walls.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, what I did like about your dialogue with him
was that he's not trying to wish away what he did.
He feels genuine remorse for what happened, and the victim,
even though the victim himself was not a good person,
was going to do some terrible things. We won't go
into what he was going to do, but this was
not a random murder. But he has the capacity to
(32:22):
forgive himself for what he did, so he doesn't just
go back into that negative image of himself. And I
think you've done the same thing to a large extent.
His example maybe has helped you bolt that door which
was previously a revolving door drugs and crime.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Well, I think we've both been through that journey of
self forgiveness. You know, I think we've both done things
that we're not proud of. To different extents. And yeah,
that journey of self forgiveness is something that anybody who's
experienced drug addiction has to go through, and that's a
difficult thing. It's not an easy thing to do, you know.
I think it's easy to forgive other people for the
(33:02):
mistakes that they've made, you know, through a of understanding
and empathy. But how do you forgive yourself? You know,
how do you forgive yourself for these things that you've done?
And there might be certain things that they triggering you
and that you perpetuate, and how do you let go
of all that and start again? How do you almost
reprogram yourself in a way, how do you wipe the
slate clean and start again. That's not an easy thing
(33:24):
to do for me, and I know for Sam as well.
That's been a long journey that we've both had to
go through. And I guess the way in which I've
done that is by acts of kindness towards myself, by
being kind towards myself, looking after myself, taking care of myself,
and learning to love myself again and let go of
some of the things that I've done, and also to
(33:47):
redefine myself in a way to move away from that
and to become a different person, to shape myself away
from those experiences that have defined me, and maybe even
you know, physically going away from a place that defined
me as well.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Yeah, I think you really have redefined yourself. And I
look at the ten years I've known you, and I
think it's an isis often through hard work. You went
back to school, you completed year twelve, you went to university,
you became a journalist. One of the proudest moments for
me was sitting there with your dad when you were
named as WA's Young Journalist of the Year. You're smiling.
I remember that was a beautiful day. And so you've
(34:20):
made every post to win it, and you've gone onto
a career in journalism. You've come up to Indonesia, you're
still on a quest. And this film you're making, The
Long Road Home, is about the road forward as much
as it is the road you've come along.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Yeah, I mean it's like, well, I guess we're all.
You know, all young people are looking for something and
searching for something, aren't they. And I think, you know,
the past couple of years, I've spent sort of riding
a motorbike across Indonesia, and you know, I guess I
set out looking for empty waves and you know, adventure,
and I think that might have been something that helped
(34:56):
me move away from drugs, but I think within that
I was also looking for something that wasn't possible to
find there as well. I think I was looking for
a sense of home within myself, and I was maybe running,
you know, moving away from these things and trying to
seek something just beyond, when what I was actually looking
for was probably right there all along. I just had to,
(35:18):
I guess, unlock the way inside.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Really, one of the themes that we've talked about a
lot over ten years is rediscovering joy after the artificial
chemical highs and those superficial relationships you have with other
drug users. And I've seen it so many times over
the years. Oh my brother, I love you, my brother.
(35:41):
You know, we'll die for each other, and then pretty
much you always see that kid in the dock on
his own and the friends have given him up, and
so those superficial relationships, and I think you've been You've
found a way to do that. And I think that's
such an object lesson for anyone listening who's going through
the groups of drug addiction now and crime and things.
Is to reassure oneself that through hard work there is
a capacity for joy after that. What's been your process
(36:03):
towards that. It's not been easy, and they've been setbacks
and turnings on this journey. You know, I think.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
After taking drugs there's a chemical imbalance in your brain
where it's difficult for your brain to actually produce dopamine.
And you know, you've kind of been living on this
plane of really high eighs and low lows, and it's
hard to kind of go back to living on a
steady plane again and to appreciate the simple things in life.
And I think for me that took a long time.
I think a big part of that was leaving Perth
(36:30):
and moving down to Margaret River and learning to appreciate
simple things like growing my own food and going surfing
and you know, living in a caravan in the bush
and living in a really simple way, learning to appreciate
the beauty and the joy of life around me. And
I think that was something that took a good few
years just to accomplish.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Sure. And I think you've said many times in this
process of making the film that you do feel like
you're running. You were going around Australia with your land
drover and your little tiny boat. You were going around
the circles. But you know that wasn't going to contain you.
And you literally had to learn a new language in
your life. And it's literally a new language, Indonesian. You
now speak fluent into Indonesian, which is equipped to you
(37:10):
for this journey right outside yourself in other cultures and
to interpret those lives. And I think that's just wonderful,
and I think people can learn new skills, and I
think that's the key, a new way of looking at
your own life.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
It's true, and I guess, you know, I think coming
to another country and experiencing another country and other people
than a different way of thinking and viewing and understanding
the world. That's helped to change my own perspective as
well and my own understanding of myself. It's also had
an influence on my own view and my own understanding
of myself and the person that I am. You know,
(37:45):
it's also allowed me to redefine myself in a way
away from a place that had defined me to an extent,
and yeah, to move away from that and become a
new and different person.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
People often want to transform themselves, and I think as
a bit of a falsity that one can have these
parts that you despise of yourself and you're going to
rub those out and everything's going to be fine. And
I think the process has been one of accepting oneself.
And I invited you to listen to one of my
favorite philosophers, Alan Watts, who a British philosopher, is unfortunately late,
but he talks about the fact that this constant desire
(38:19):
to change oneself, to erase those things you don't like
about oneself, is actually the problem. You know, that's the
quaking mess, and thinking that this process of transformation is
going to be the great virtue when in fact that's
the problem. And I think you've come to that understanding
that accepting oneself, all your flaws and all your history,
has been a way of moving forward, carrying less of
(38:42):
the burden.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Well, I think, you know, maybe that's what I was
looking for through all this running, and you know, searching
for something is maybe just this contentment with who I
am and where I'm at and the person that I am,
and accepting that person for all of his flaws and
mistakes and regrets, and that's formed a big part of
who I am. And I think, you know, life is
(39:04):
exactly the way it's supposed to be, and you know,
all of these things were supposed to happen. I've arrived
now exactly in the place where I'm meant to be,
and it's through that journey I've been able to arrive
at an understanding and acceptance of myself that I didn't
have before. You know, I am different, and I am
the person that I am, and I'm okay with that person.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
You kind of played in getting your first tattoo. We've
talked about this and it's come from a Javanese expression.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
What is it? It's a difficult one to translate. It's
I guess it's a phrase that's unique to a particular people,
but it translates roughly to be patient. Your destiny is
already determined or your fortune's already determined.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And so all that negative stuff was just part of
that that was already ordained. You had to go through
that to get to the next phase of your life,
which you're in now.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
Yeah, and I think that phrase kind of sums it up.
You know, everything has happened the way that it's supposed
to happen. And I guess it sums up that idea
year of acceptance, of accepting that this is the way
that I am, and this is the way that things
were supposed to happen, and exactly as it was supposed
to be, and it always exactly as it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
And there are probably hopefully thousands of people listening to
this podcast, A certain percentage will be saying, that's me
or that's my son. What does your experience offer those people?
Speaker 3 (40:33):
I guess hope, you know, I guess hope that there
is a future and there is a way forward, and
there is life beyond drugs, and you know, it might
not seem like it. Sometimes it might seem that things
might often look pretty bleak and dark, but you know,
with hard work and persistence and determination that there is
a way forward and there is a way through this,
(40:53):
and with some intent and determination, the future does look
pretty bright and.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
There is a place that you can call home. And
this is still a focus on this film. By the way,
you're preparing to go back to Perth. Now you don't
know what the future holds, Maybe you go back there.
I means since i've known you. You've been threatening to
go back to Perth to find that home that you
never really felt. I'm not sure it's there, and I
don't think you can adequately answer that question yet, but
you're still there's still another chapter of that restoration and
(41:22):
that sense of home, which I think a lot of
young people who get involved in crime and drugs, I
don't really like that, and they've destroyed their families and
there's not much to go back to. Fortunately, you have
rebuilt the bridges with your family, but that may not
be your ultimate destination.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Well, I think what this journey's really been about is
finding a sense of home within myself, you know, understanding
and accepting that this is the person that I am
and this is where I belong. You know. Home might
not be back in that particular place, but for a
long time I didn't feel at home within myself. And
I think that's really what I've been running around and
(41:59):
looking for and chasing, is that sense of acceptance within myself.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
I think going back to a place that fits the
traditional idea of home, the traditional context of home is
I guess a reference point for that. You know, my
family are there and it's a place where I spent
a good chunk of time growing up, and it might
for a lot of people that might be home. But
I think you know the understanding that there's no sense
(42:25):
of home within that, but there's a sense, you know,
maybe I've discovered a sense of home within myself, and
I think that'll be a big reference point for that
and a big understanding of sure.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I think one of the achievements has been to free
yourself of all that past, to give yourself options that
people in the criminal justice system simply don't have their
choices narrow down. But now at age thirty, it's trying
to make some decisions about what happens in the future.
And I'm just fascinated to see what happens. I've got
an inkling and I've watched you over these ten years,
(42:57):
and I'm just so proud of you.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Now, Thanks Adam, And I'm really grateful for all the
help and advice and guidance and support that you've given
me along the way. You know, you've made a big
impact on my life.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, there have been some moments while we've clashed. Yeah,
and I've seen that defiance and I've seen that kid
that was in that terrible spotshep. But you just you've
done it on You've pulled yourself up by your bootstraps.
And I think that's just incredibly admirable that I've never
said to this to any other person I've been given
on this podcast with grumbing Adam shand I do love you.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
I love you too, Adam.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Thanks, Matte, we'll leave it there. Thanks so much for
your time, mate. Yeah, I can't wait to see this film.
The Long Road at Home will be in cinemas at
a date to be fixed in the future, still in progress,
but it's going to be a fantastic journey. And I
think it's just it offers so much, and Tom's story
offers so much to all those people out there who
are battling with this. Don't give up on your children.
(43:48):
Try your best. You're going to make mistakes, you will,
and they'll continue to disappoint you and cause your dramas.
But I think what I love about Tom experiences they
have stuck the journey. There have been moments where they
it's been very tough, but they're still there. They're still
in this corner even though the thicket sometimes and I'm
really proud of them as well. But so you know,
(44:08):
I love your kids as best you can give them
second chance, third chance, as many chances as they need,
because the potential is there. If love is there, What
can I say? What can I say? Oh?
Speaker 3 (44:20):
I think I think what this is really about is
not so much about drugs, And you know, I think
it's about finding a way as a young man. And
that's the thing that all young men struggle through, you know,
with the lack of guidance and rituals, and you know,
I guess male role models to some extent as well,
and it's it's not an easy thing to find you
as a young man in a modern day and age.
(44:41):
You know, that's something that led me down this pretty
dark path. But yeah, I mean I guess I've been
able to find my way forward and find a path.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Well said, as Tom says, stay patient, your fortune is
already ordained. Thank you for listening. If you have a
crime you want to commit, don't do it. If you
have a crime you want to report, call crime Stoppers
one need to hundred, triple three, triple zero. I do
take the very seriously. Police will attend to your information.
(45:12):
But if you don't trust the coppers please send me
an email Adam Shanner writer at gmail dot com. Thank
you for listening. This has been real crime with Adam
shann
Appoche production. This podcast includes references to drug use, youth suicide,
and violent crime. It's not recommended for younger audiences and
listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand.
I'm your host, Adam Shand. If you enjoy our content,
(00:28):
please subscribe, like, and share to support more independent crime journalism.
Youth crime is the hot issue in Australia right now.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Victoria is cracking down on youth offenders, with children as
young as fourteen facing the possibility of being jailed for
life for violent crime.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Day after day, we read stories of angry, disaffected young
people committing violent, senseless crimes, often while under the influence
of drugs like methamphetamine or ice.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Destroying families, causing carnage on our roads, and murder in
our homes.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
This is a bleak story of family breakdown, alienation from
education and employment, and offenders consigned to a revolving door
of the criminal justice system.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Ice is ripping through rural and regional areas, devastating entire towns.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
But today I'm not here to wring my hands and
add to this council of despair, because I've witnessed the
miraculous possibilities of hope and redemption. I met my guest
ten years ago when he was turning his life around
from is addiction and crime. Back then, I made a
podcast with Tom Desuza called Meth Destruction, which detailed his
(01:41):
descent into that hellish world. Fortunately meth did not destroy Tom,
but it did come very close. He got his life
back on track and is now making a documentary film
about riding a motorcycle across Indonesia. He's living a life
of grace and possibility that he could scarcely have imagined
back in the dark days of his early teens. And
(02:04):
it's my great pleasure to speak with you again, Tom Adam,
how's it going? Amazing? What comes to mind is that
Bob Dylan's song A Hard Range is going to fall
on the line where have you been, my blue eyed son?
And it really applies to your journey. You're living in
an extraordinary life now. Like I said, could you have
(02:26):
imagined where you are today back in those early days.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Back in those days, I remember my drug dealer telling
me if anybody made it to twenty five, you're a survivor.
There weren't many of us who made it past twenty five,
So no, not at all. You know, if you ask
me back then, I'd be surprised to know that I'd
even still be alive.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Because looking at you, I don't see any of the effects.
I mean, you describe yourself as a junkie before. You
don't look like that, you don't act like that. You've
really managed to get through this on the surface unscathed. Obviously,
these things do leave impacts. But I guess you've been
pretty lucky.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, for sure, I have been lucky, and I guess
the version of success I've been able to achieve. I
actually went in a couple of years ago and saw
a drug counselor who was my counselor when I was
going through rehap and youth detox and that kind of thing,
and she said, it's actually quite remarkable what's happened, because
oftentimes success for a lot of people who came out
(03:23):
of drug addiction it's just the ability to hold down
a job or a relationship. And yeah, I guess I've
been able to take it to the next level and
build a pretty extraordinary life, which I'm really grateful for.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah, it is extraordinary. And I think we're often sold
a message that is somewhat a miracle story that life
after drugs is going to be perfect if you do
these things and you stay on the program. But of
course life still intervenes. There's still the problems of life
to deal with, and getting off drugs and out of
(03:56):
crime is just one more stop on the journey. Do
you feel like that that you still sort of a
work in progress? Things are still happening, You're still sorting
out life for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
That's life, isn't it? You know? That's life for everybody.
Life isn't easy. Life is hard, and there are a
lot of trials and challenges and things that everybody goes
through on the way. And I guess for me, as
a child and as a teenager, drugs for my escape
from that and my means of coping with that. But
I learned a lot of hard lessons at a pretty
young age. Whereas I think some of the challenges and
(04:28):
struggles in life, I think a lot of people go
through life maybe not being able to deal with those
things and finding other escapes, whether that's in work, in sex,
or alcoholism, or I guess everybody has their own kind
of form of escape. And I think I learned a
lot of these lessons at a young age, and that's
equipped me pretty well.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, I won't start on my various additions and passions
and obsessions which I've used to get through nearly forty
years of journalism. And we're actually here in Balley. So
if you do hear motorbikes in the background, scooters and things,
I'm not going to stop with them because there's just
too many of them. If you'll have to put up
with the listeners. But I've been giving you a hand
with your film, and part of the exercise was to
make an outline of all the material you have shot
(05:08):
over nearly two years and then cut it up into
bits and put it on the floor. And I was
looking at your life on the floor, which has included
all the dark times, how you got into drugs and crime,
and how you've got out and where your journey's taken you.
Let's go back to the beginning of that, because your
story begins in a middle class family in England with
(05:28):
all the advantages, but then things began to go wrong.
Tell us a bit about that.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I had a pretty privileged life, was one of four kids.
Dad worked a good job, Mum worked as a vet
and I kind of grew up having all the modern
day trappings. I guess, you know, I had a good education.
I took French lessons and swimming lessons and tennis lessons,
and as far as I knew, it was part of
a happy, unified family.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
But then things began to go wrong. Dad was working
in the financial industry. The stock market crash came and
you guys, return to your family's native home, Perth, and
you struggled to fit in. You've never found Perth was
home even to this day, and cracks began to appear
in that middle class facade.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
What happened, Well, I think, you know, it's a pretty
difficult thing to mobilize a family of six people and
move them across to the other side of the world.
And I think Mum and Dad had this idea of
how things might look on the reality turned out to
be really different. Dad struggled to find work, I struggled
to fit in, and I guess I felt different from
(06:35):
everybody else, and I found myself in a place where
that difference wasn't really celebrated or encouraged, and as a result,
I started to hate myself and be unhappy with who
I was and to feel uncomfortable in my own skin.
So I set about trying to destroy myself literally.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
And you're a gifted student, You've got a scholarship to
a prestigious school. You didn't fit in. You saw your
name up on the on a board in gold letters,
and that was a source of bullying for you. Your
response was to try to burn the school down.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. That was how much I hated
that place. You know, I went to the school on
the weekend. I was just skateboarding with a friend. I
didn't go there with that specific intention, but I was
there at the school, and you know, I guess all
these visceral feelings just I saw a pile of leaves
on the veranda outside the headmaster's office, and yeah, all
these feelings just compelled me to go and hold a
(07:27):
cannadioda and a lighter up to the leaves. And yeah,
luckily the grounds keeper saw us and chased us away
before anything went up in flames. But I wasn't happy
at that place. I didn't like it. And I guess,
like I said, I was uncomfortable in my own skin,
and I sought solitude out on the margins of society.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, and you went a good crook because you didn't
look for the CCTV camera, which gave you up straight away,
so you were immediately turned in And that was the
beginning of the end for you at that school. I
think you were expelled went it.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah, Yeah, I was expelled and I went to eight
or nine different schools in total, so I moved around
a lot, and there was definitely a feeling of dislocation,
and I think, you know, there was a sense of
instability at school, and there was a sense of instability
at home as well. Mum and Dad's relationship was starting
to get pretty rocky. Dad had gone to work in
Hong Kong and then come back, and we also weren't
(08:17):
really sure of our future in Perth. We'd just moved
from London. We'd been back in Perth through about three years,
and there was talk of moving again to Sydney or
Melbourne or somewhere else. And I didn't really feel a
sense of stability. And I moved through all these schools
and it started to think, well, what's the point of
making friends and investing in this place when we might
just move again.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah, and you're looking for a sense of ease and
comfort within yourself. You discover marijuana, You smoke a bit
that for a while, and then you decided to go
on to caffeine pills, of all things, and you and
your mate steal from the supermarket a whole bunch of
cap I don't if caffeine pills are still available, don't
go looking for them if you listen to this podcast.
But see you crush all these pills up. You know,
white powder, I don't know didn't have any effect on
(08:59):
m Sure it would have. But and your mother finds
the bag of white powder hidden in a drum kit
at home. And I don't blame any parent for being
alarmed when they think their kids falling into drug addiction
or hard drugs and so forth. But she did make
a telling decision because rather than deal with it within
the family, what did she do?
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, she called the police. This was sort of two
thousand and eight. It was kind of around the time
when ice was just starting to sort of become prolific
in Perth and in Australia. And I'd heard on the
radio that ice was being made from these cold and
flu pills which kind of had pseudoeffortrine as a base ingredient.
You know, I sort of thought, oh, well, you know,
if I crushed them up and put them in with
(09:38):
the caffeine pills, maybe that'll have some effect as well.
And so yeah, she called the police, and the police
came and did a kind of preliminary test on them,
and obviously, because it had the base ingredient of methamphetamine,
it responded to the test. And so they charged me
with dealing ice and sent me to juvenile attention. And
my parents were at their wits end. They didn't know
what to do. They sought the guidance of the police,
(09:59):
who they figured were experienced in these kinds of things.
But I think juvenile at tension had the complete opposite
effect to what was intended. It instilled in me this
hatred of authority. It made me even more angry, and
it told me that society rejected me and didn't accept me.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And your parents had given you up, lagged you to
the cops, and there you are, and you go on
from scholarship student to juvenile detention in Range View in Perth.
That first night is burned in your memory.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah, yeah, it is. It was a pretty horrific place.
You know, I was putting this observation cell. It's about
eight or nine cells in a semicircle around this kind
of central control room or with kind of like a fishbowl,
I guess, or with this you know, big floor to
ceiling perspex window. And there was blood and graffiti and
kind of dried toilet paper all over the wall. Lights
(10:49):
were on twenty four hours a day, and the aircom
was turned up full bast and just the screaming and
the yelling and the shouting coming from the other cells,
and there was a girl in the cell next to
me who's just smashing her head against the wall until
she cracked the glass. And the next morning we was
sort of woken up and strip searched and showered and
got prepared to go to court. And I remember sitting
(11:10):
in this little two by three meters sell with about
ten other people that I think I was one of
only two white kids in that cell. All of these
other guys in there were quite a bit older and
violent criminals as well, carthieves and robbers, and you know,
they were sitting there telling these stories. I could hardly
even understand the whether that they spoke and how well
(11:30):
were you I was thirteen thirteen.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, little Lord Fauntleroy. Yeah, thrown in with the hardened
criminals at thirteen.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Well, yeah, you know, all of a sudden, I had
to try and adapt myself to this environment and this
is a place that I'd found myself and I had
to try and fit in.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
And how long was that stint?
Speaker 3 (11:45):
That was only one night. I was bailed. I was
bowed to my parents. I think they thought that by
working with the court they might be able to try
and take back some kind of semblance of control that
they hadn't before. But going to juvenile attention had the
complete opposite effect to what was intended.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
And they were certainly working hard they were doing with them.
And that's the thing. I don't blame it. Like I
said before, I don't blame any parent going through the
for the first time looking at the range of solutions
open to them and realizing it's beyond their understanding, and
they look for institutional solutions. The next one was drug rehab,
which ironically was a window to hard drugs and criminal
(12:21):
connections which would sustain you over the next several years.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yeah. No, that's right. I've breached my boil conditions and
was sent back to juvenile's attention sort of two or
three more times in the couple of months after that
first night, and eventually there was no one in my
family who could really be responsible for me or take
care of me. Everybody just thought I was too out
of control, and so I was sent to go and
stand this drug rehab. For three months, I lived in
(12:45):
this house in one of the outer suburbs of Perth.
I was surrounded by older, more experienced drug users, and
you know, they became like my family in a sense.
Had to try and adapt myself, to make myself fit
into that place and try and find a sense of
belonging there. And I did that by listening to their
stories and the things that they'd been through and trying
to copy them and repo them and pretend that I
(13:06):
was one of them as well. And you pretend for
long enough to try and be someone, eventually you become
that person. And that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
And these are your formative years. I mean, you've got
no other example. You're trying to make your way.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
What happened next I got out of drug rehab I
think just after my fourteenth birthday. My parents were divorced
not long after, so.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
They're busy with their own issues now, and they've got
this troublesome child, Tommy. We've also got the three other
children to look after and to deal with. Yeah, so
a lot was going on.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Yeah, I went looking for drugs. I had the means
to go and find them now, and you know, I'd
heard all these stories about them. I was curious about them,
and I wanted to know what it was all about.
You know, I'd spent three months in there listening to
these kids tell stories about getting high on ice and
going out and stealing cars and all these kinds of
things that they made sound really exciting, and Sanator Hall
a lot better than what I was going back to
(13:57):
where I was. So I was curious and I went
looking for it.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And you found it how I found it.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I started with drugs like heroin, an oxyconton and these things.
I didn't really like it. It made me sick, it
made me its year. It wasn't really what I was
looking for. I enjoyed the rush that I got from it,
but not really the high. You know, I kind of
enjoyed the first five minutes after injecting the drug, but
then afterwards when you sort of started to feel a
bit stoned. I didn't really like that. I didn't really
(14:22):
want to go to sleep and numb myself. I wanted
to kind of bring myself up out of myself. And
then through a friend of a friend, I was introduced
to another drug dealer who was twenty years older than me,
and he introduced me to ice and started schooling me
in crime.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And he was like your fagin to your all over twist. Yeah,
and he was an odd character. He was obviously been
right through the mill of criminality and drugs and mental
disorder as well.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
He had. He'd been injecting ice for twenty years. He
was obsessed with stal wars figures and skulls which used
to swap for ice. And he schooled me in crime
and this criminal mentality and taught me how to deal
drugs and also how to survive in this world. Like
I guess he took me under his wing in a sense,
and maybe, you know, I thought he had the kind
of sense of duty to protect me or help me
(15:08):
in this world of violence and crime. And yeah, he
scored me and showed me the ropes.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I in no way condone this sort of drug use,
but I think it's true to say that individuals find
the drug that best suits their needs and for whatever reason,
ice was that for you? Why?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah, people definitely go looking for particular drugs for particular reasons.
And I definitely suffered from a lack of self confidence.
I didn't like the person that I was, and I
brought me up and out of that, and it kind
of instilled this false kind of confidence in me and
made me feel on top of the world, and it
made me feel good about myself. That that was really
(15:47):
the addiction for me. That was what I was really
looking for.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
And you were injecting it, which is not usually the
way that young people are introduced to it. They tend
to smoke it and so forth. But what was the
difference with injecting it?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Things escalated pretty quickly. Things escalated really quickly with me.
And that's I think the sensation that you get from
injecting the drug is far more potent and powerful. I've
never experienced anything else in my life like that. That's
so instant and just you know, I think smoking it,
that sensation is definitely more addictive. But I think the
actual ritual of smoking ice is a more repetitive kind
(16:24):
of ritual. You know, you continue smoking it and smoking
and smoking it, and you know, you almost get addicted
to just the smoking of it, whereas injecting it, you
have one shot and that's it and you're good for
another eight hours, and you know, you spend that other
eight hours sort of chasing enough money to go and
get more. And that, for me, that was a real
part of the addiction, That whole ritual and the chase,
the thrill of the chase, you know, the ice, the
(16:45):
drug itself was just something that kind of kept that
whole show going.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
And Madow, as you said, was now showing you how
to get money and the crimes that would achieve that.
For you, what were you up to in terms of
your criminal pursuits.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I was selling drugs and you know, using the profits
to buy ice. I was stealing a lot. I was
just basically getting money however I could. And I didn't
really care who I stole it off, or where it
came from, or what I was doing. I just all
I really thought about was that next shot from your family. Yeah,
I stole from people I loved and who were close
to me.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
How do you feel about that now?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Pretty ashamed? That's not something I'm proud of. It's something
I regret because.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
This is the process that occurs where people fall to
this addiction and steal from family, and that creates more
distance and mistrust between the family, which actually accentuates all
the issues going on.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Well that's right, Yeah, it just kind of perpetuates the problem,
you know, you know, it makes you feel even worse
about yourself. And because you feel worse about yourself, I
would go and try and block those feelings out in
the only way in which I knew how to deal
with them, which is by taking more drugs. And it's
just this kind of cycle that kept going around and
round and round and faster and faster, and you know,
there's no real way of stopping it.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Things became violent as well. You ripped off some guys
with some drugs that weren't drugs.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah. I was exposed to violence from a pretty young age,
and at first time I was in juvenile attension, I
was exposed to a lot of violence, and I guess
that became something that informed the way that I behave
and the way that I reacted to things. That world
is a pretty violent world as well. The first time
I really got bashed was in a range of Juvenile
Detention Center. I was thirteen years old. I've got a
(18:29):
ping pong table smashed over my head for not really
any reason at all, just because I was on the
oval laughing with the mate and this other guy had
broken the rules and lost his power for the evening
and he sort of took it out on me. You know,
he had to go at me on the oval and
said I'll wait until we get back to the unit,
and I kind of didn't think anything of it. And
you know, a couple of hours later, I'm sitting there
(18:50):
in the unit waiting to play ping pong and him
and three of his cousins come running around the corner
and just picked me up and threw me on top
of this ping pong table and smashed it over my
head for no reason at all. Really, I'm just sitting
there laughing with a mate, having a good time, and
you know, suddenly I was exposed to this world of violence.
And violence, I guess, is a language that knows no
logic or no reason. There's no real way to respond
(19:14):
to it other than with that language of violence itself.
And that was something that I had to learn and adopt.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And you were involved in violent incidents that you initiated.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeah, yeah, there are a few robberies. And yeah, I think,
like a lot of young men, I had a lot
of things confused. Kindness could be easily confused for weakness,
and I had fear confused with respect as well. And
I think, you know, that was how that world worked.
If people were afraid of you, that was kind of
considered as respect. It's, oh, you know, this guy's so
and so, and nobody wants to go near him, and
(19:45):
he's you know, he's a big figure. And yeah, that
was that was something that I had confused, Like a
lot of young misguided men.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
You're moving down this path and you're not happy about it.
You're not happy in any sense. You're becoming more depressed
and anxious. You know, the more drugs you have, the
more you have to have. And you thall me were
quite of steep depression.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Yeah, I mean, I've got to admit it's deep within.
I wasn't happy, I wasn't content, I wasn't fulfilled. But
this life was also exciting as well, and it kind
of presented, I guess, something of an antidote to that depression.
I mean, it definitely perpetuated as well because of the
drugs that I was taking, the things that they were doing.
That was no solution for the way I felt. But
(20:26):
it was also exciting. It was an adventure and it
took me away from the way that I felt. And
it wasn't just the drugs that I did that. It
was the lifestyle that went along with that too. You know.
It was going out and stealing things and staying out
late and seeing what kinds of trouble we could get
ourselves into and how we could source money to go
and get our next shot of ice or Yeah, in
a way, it was. It was its own kind of
(20:48):
sordid adventure, I guess.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
And you're becoming a better crook because you weren't getting
caught as much and you weren't doing more juvenile attention.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, I was being schooled in that, so I understood
how to be a better criminal. And you know, things
had happened and I'd learned from that experience. Is one
example where I ripped these guys off for an amount
of drugs and a week later they set me up
in the park and bashed me and stripped me of
everything and broke my jaw with bricks and star pickets
and ride and pushed back over my face. And I
spent the next six weeks eating out of a straw,
(21:18):
and Madaw kind of tried to school me in a
way that taught me how to be better. He taught
me how to be different and how to avoid those
things from happening, and what I could do next time.
And yeah, I started, Yeah, I started learning from those things,
and I guess becoming a better criminal one soon.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Rain's falling now outside, it's certainly a steamy, wet day
here in Bali. How did you see the future. If
you did see the future, were you just living day
to day in a kind of almost an animalistic survival mode.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yeah, I was just reacting to urges and instincts. Really,
I didn't think about the future. I didn't have any
goals or ambitions or long term plans or you know.
All I cared about was that particular moment and what
I could get in my lungs or in my arm
or Yeah, the future wasn't really a prospect for me
at all.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
And what was happening with your relationship with family through this?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
It completely fallen apart. My mum and dad both had
pretty different ways of responding to it. Mum's I guess,
always been a pretty determined person and someone who's tried
to grab the problem and sort of try and steer
it in the right direction, whereas my dad was a
bit more hands off.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
He knew that there wasn't a lot that he could do,
and I guess he tried to keep me close and
maybe try and guide me back down, try and guide
me down to rock bottom so it'd be there to
help me push back up once I was there. But
I guess deep in this hole and just kept digging
this hole deeper, and no matter how much people tried
to reach down and help pull me out, didn't want
(22:44):
the help. I wouldn't accept their help. I was stuck.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
I remember your father telling me that he dreamt or
imagined himself standing at the edge of your grave.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah, her dad did say that to me once, and
I think Mum said that she kind of always knew
that I would be okay, And Dad said he felt
a similar way as well, up until that point where
I had that dream. And I think he got to
a point where he started to become really afraid.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And you were becoming afraid or depressed to the point
where the adventure was souring, and you also tried to
take your own life.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, yeah, I did. I guess three incidents I can
remember that were really pivotal moments in this I guess
that made me understand that I needed to change my life.
The first was a psychotic episode. I'd been awake for
ten days on ice and went running around the streets
with a meat cleaver, chasing somebody who wasn't there. And
(23:41):
the second, Yeah, I was trying to change but couldn't
do it. It was all too hard, and so I tried
to hang myself off the beam in my mum's garage,
and the beam snapped out of the wall as I
was hanging.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
We talked about this this morning, and I could see
that it came back to you in a very visceral way.
And I guess, as we reflect here about what you've achieved,
since you think this wouldn't have occurred had that beam
not snapped. How close you were to snuffing at you
all your potential. How do you reflect on that now?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Well, it's true, it's a difficult thing to go back
and revisit all this. You know, I've come a long
way since a lot of that, and yeah, it's a
part of me. It's an experience that I've lived that
I guess has shaped my outlook on the world and
the person that I am. But also I tried it
to let that define me as well. And there are
many other things that I've done and many other things
that I'm doing that contribute to the person that I
(24:31):
am and the person I've become. It is hard to
go back and revisit these things and pull myself back
into that particular moment. It's not a pleasant one and
it's a difficult place to go, for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
It is. It really isn't for me When I when
we talked about this morning, it was real for me
in a way that it wasn't before. When I see
what you've done since, and I'm so grateful that fortune
was in your favor at that moment and you have
moved on. But there's still some legacies of those choices
and the relationships you had, in particular your best mate Sam,
(25:07):
who's still in jail to this day serving a life
sentence for murder.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, I guess you know, there were definitely a handful
of fork in the road kind of moments along the way,
and I don't know if you've ever seen that movie
The Butterfly Effect, where all these different potential outcomes for
the way that a life can look based on different
decisions in one particular moment. And I guess in the
(25:33):
past I've looked back at some of those moments and gone, well,
what if this had happened or what if that had happened?
But you know, I also believe that everything happens the
way that it should, and that you know, our lives
are destined to a particular course. To some extent, that
murder that Sam committed was definitely one of those moments
(25:53):
where I had started to turn the corner. Sam was
my best friend. He was still kind of stuck in
that world, and just after he committed the murdery he
called me and asked for my help. You know, I
waited for him to come and help, and eventually he
decided that no, he didn't want to drag me into that.
And you know, he was eventually arrested and convicted and
(26:13):
received a life sentence. Whereas you know, one really vivid
moment that this up, I guess was I remember just
after he had been arrested and was on remand in
Haykia prison, and I just got my driver's license, and
I was driving down the coast to you on the
first weekend surfing trip away with my mates, and we
(26:33):
drove past a turn off to where Sam had gone
and buried the body and kept driving and went surfing
and had a good weekend away.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
And I want to go into the circumstances of the
mentor of book. If you want to go back to
meth destruction, you can hear more about that. I don't
think it's worth going back over detail of that, but
there was a critical moment where Sam decided not to
involve you, not to come and get you, which would
have made you an accessory to that murder while disposing
of the body.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
You owe a lot, I guess I do in a sense,
you know, I don't know if I owe him a lot,
as in I feel indebted to him in a way,
but I have a lot to thank him for and
I'm grateful for the decision that he made for choosing
not to drag me into that.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, there was a moment where when he were talking
to Sam over a video call, and he was sitting
there in his green T shirt classic in mat garb
and you're sitting there in your green rip curl T shirt. Balley,
I said to you, circumstances were different, there'd be no
rip curl BALLEI on that green. It just be a
green T shirt and haking a prison.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, both wearing very different shades of greener.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
And he's had to confront the consequences of his decisions.
I feel like you've been living some of his life
for him, and you've kept your relationship. And I think
one thing that really really touched my heart was when
he said that a lot of his friends and family
have dropped off and you've stuck with him. So I
think there is a debt of gratitude at least.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Well, I think there was a connection and there was
something that we share, and I guess, you know, we
both lived experiences that not a lot of other people
can relate to, and since that murder, we've both been
on our own journeys and I think both of those
journeys have played out in similar ways, albeit in very
different circumstances. And you know, there are not a lot
(28:22):
of other people I find who can relate to those experiences.
You know, people can listen to them and be enthralled
by them. But you know how many people can actually
understands There's very few. You know, my younger brother's one
and Sam's another. And yeah, it's just he gets it.
He understands. And I think we've both been on our
own journeys in uncovered similar wisdoms and insights into ourselves
(28:46):
and the world around us, but just in our own
different ways.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Because he said to you that he feels like he's
in the place that he needs to be, which sounds
perverse to people from the outside who'd want to be
in prison, but that has been He's ten years older
than you, by the way, he's just turned forty. Yeah,
and a big chunk of his life has been spenting there.
He's found a way to retain hope.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
I remember saying that to him. I remember saying, oh,
you know that I was proud of him and despite
the circumstances, I was proud of the person who had
become in the journey that he'd been on. And he
responded to that pretty abruptly. He said, you need to
change that way of thinking. You know. It's these circumstances
are not necessarily bad, he said to me, this is
(29:31):
exactly where I need to be. This is what was
supposed to happen, and this is life exactly it was
as it was planned out for me, and I'm exactly
in the place that I need to be, where I
was able to uncover the lessons which I needed to uncover,
you know. And he said that as a prisoner he
often goes through that same experience of he's got a
(29:52):
lot of time to think, and he thinks a lot
about what would have happened if I did this differently
or did that differently. And I think he's made peace
with that and come to terms with it, you know,
he's asked himself, well, you know, you can't think like that,
because who knows if he would even still be here
if that murder hadn't have happened and he hadn't been
arrested and gone to prison. Who knows if he would
(30:12):
even still be alive.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Because that is certainly a feature of some people's prison experiences.
Once they're behind bars and they come down off the drugs,
they get sober, they get the insight. And I've dealt
with this many times with prisoners I've corresponded with, and
they have great clarity and they can articulate things that
they never could before while they're in that animalistic survival
(30:34):
mode that you know all so well. And also I
reflect on the fact that those fourteen years that he's
spent inside, you've been turning your life around and making
a successive things. All those waves you've caught, all those
places you've been, the insights you've had. As you say,
you've come to a similar place, but through very different circumstances.
(30:55):
Sam is now hopefully will be released in the coming years.
What will be your relationship with him from here on
and what will you share with him? How do you
see the future with him?
Speaker 3 (31:07):
I think of that world of drugs that I was
involved in. Sam as the only person that I've kept
in contact with. I think him and I shared something
that went far deeper than just the drugs. I think
a lot of other friends I had that was all
we really had in common, that was all we had
to connect over, whereas Sam and I shared something much deeper.
And I know for Sam that the real struggle will
(31:31):
come when he gets out of prison. You know, he's
spent almost a whole lifetime in there. You know he's
going to come out and find a very different world,
and I wonder how some of the hopes and dreams
that he has us. You know, I think he's also
going to find some disappointment as well. I do worry
for him when he'll get out, and what will come
(31:52):
of his life, and what he'll be able to make
of his life, and what kind of future awaits him
outside of those prison walls.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, what I did like about your dialogue with him
was that he's not trying to wish away what he did.
He feels genuine remorse for what happened, and the victim,
even though the victim himself was not a good person,
was going to do some terrible things. We won't go
into what he was going to do, but this was
not a random murder. But he has the capacity to
(32:22):
forgive himself for what he did, so he doesn't just
go back into that negative image of himself. And I
think you've done the same thing to a large extent.
His example maybe has helped you bolt that door which
was previously a revolving door drugs and crime.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Well, I think we've both been through that journey of
self forgiveness. You know, I think we've both done things
that we're not proud of. To different extents. And yeah,
that journey of self forgiveness is something that anybody who's
experienced drug addiction has to go through, and that's a
difficult thing. It's not an easy thing to do, you know.
I think it's easy to forgive other people for the
(33:02):
mistakes that they've made, you know, through a of understanding
and empathy. But how do you forgive yourself? You know,
how do you forgive yourself for these things that you've done?
And there might be certain things that they triggering you
and that you perpetuate, and how do you let go
of all that and start again? How do you almost
reprogram yourself in a way, how do you wipe the
slate clean and start again. That's not an easy thing
(33:24):
to do for me, and I know for Sam as well.
That's been a long journey that we've both had to
go through. And I guess the way in which I've
done that is by acts of kindness towards myself, by
being kind towards myself, looking after myself, taking care of myself,
and learning to love myself again and let go of
some of the things that I've done, and also to
(33:47):
redefine myself in a way to move away from that
and to become a different person, to shape myself away
from those experiences that have defined me, and maybe even
you know, physically going away from a place that defined
me as well.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Yeah, I think you really have redefined yourself. And I
look at the ten years I've known you, and I
think it's an isis often through hard work. You went
back to school, you completed year twelve, you went to university,
you became a journalist. One of the proudest moments for
me was sitting there with your dad when you were
named as WA's Young Journalist of the Year. You're smiling.
I remember that was a beautiful day. And so you've
(34:20):
made every post to win it, and you've gone onto
a career in journalism. You've come up to Indonesia, you're
still on a quest. And this film you're making, The
Long Road Home, is about the road forward as much
as it is the road you've come along.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Yeah, I mean it's like, well, I guess we're all.
You know, all young people are looking for something and
searching for something, aren't they. And I think, you know,
the past couple of years, I've spent sort of riding
a motorbike across Indonesia, and you know, I guess I
set out looking for empty waves and you know, adventure,
and I think that might have been something that helped
(34:56):
me move away from drugs, but I think within that
I was also looking for something that wasn't possible to
find there as well. I think I was looking for
a sense of home within myself, and I was maybe running,
you know, moving away from these things and trying to
seek something just beyond, when what I was actually looking
for was probably right there all along. I just had to,
(35:18):
I guess, unlock the way inside.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Really, one of the themes that we've talked about a
lot over ten years is rediscovering joy after the artificial
chemical highs and those superficial relationships you have with other
drug users. And I've seen it so many times over
the years. Oh my brother, I love you, my brother.
(35:41):
You know, we'll die for each other, and then pretty
much you always see that kid in the dock on
his own and the friends have given him up, and
so those superficial relationships, and I think you've been You've
found a way to do that. And I think that's
such an object lesson for anyone listening who's going through
the groups of drug addiction now and crime and things.
Is to reassure oneself that through hard work there is
a capacity for joy after that. What's been your process
(36:03):
towards that. It's not been easy, and they've been setbacks
and turnings on this journey. You know, I think.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
After taking drugs there's a chemical imbalance in your brain
where it's difficult for your brain to actually produce dopamine.
And you know, you've kind of been living on this
plane of really high eighs and low lows, and it's
hard to kind of go back to living on a
steady plane again and to appreciate the simple things in life.
And I think for me that took a long time.
I think a big part of that was leaving Perth
(36:30):
and moving down to Margaret River and learning to appreciate
simple things like growing my own food and going surfing
and you know, living in a caravan in the bush
and living in a really simple way, learning to appreciate
the beauty and the joy of life around me. And
I think that was something that took a good few
years just to accomplish.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Sure. And I think you've said many times in this
process of making the film that you do feel like
you're running. You were going around Australia with your land
drover and your little tiny boat. You were going around
the circles. But you know that wasn't going to contain you.
And you literally had to learn a new language in
your life. And it's literally a new language, Indonesian. You
now speak fluent into Indonesian, which is equipped to you
(37:10):
for this journey right outside yourself in other cultures and
to interpret those lives. And I think that's just wonderful,
and I think people can learn new skills, and I
think that's the key, a new way of looking at
your own life.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
It's true, and I guess, you know, I think coming
to another country and experiencing another country and other people
than a different way of thinking and viewing and understanding
the world. That's helped to change my own perspective as
well and my own understanding of myself. It's also had
an influence on my own view and my own understanding
of myself and the person that I am. You know,
(37:45):
it's also allowed me to redefine myself in a way
away from a place that had defined me to an extent,
and yeah, to move away from that and become a
new and different person.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
People often want to transform themselves, and I think as
a bit of a falsity that one can have these
parts that you despise of yourself and you're going to
rub those out and everything's going to be fine. And
I think the process has been one of accepting oneself.
And I invited you to listen to one of my
favorite philosophers, Alan Watts, who a British philosopher, is unfortunately late,
but he talks about the fact that this constant desire
(38:19):
to change oneself, to erase those things you don't like
about oneself, is actually the problem. You know, that's the
quaking mess, and thinking that this process of transformation is
going to be the great virtue when in fact that's
the problem. And I think you've come to that understanding
that accepting oneself, all your flaws and all your history,
has been a way of moving forward, carrying less of
(38:42):
the burden.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Well, I think, you know, maybe that's what I was
looking for through all this running, and you know, searching
for something is maybe just this contentment with who I
am and where I'm at and the person that I am,
and accepting that person for all of his flaws and
mistakes and regrets, and that's formed a big part of
who I am. And I think, you know, life is
(39:04):
exactly the way it's supposed to be, and you know,
all of these things were supposed to happen. I've arrived
now exactly in the place where I'm meant to be,
and it's through that journey I've been able to arrive
at an understanding and acceptance of myself that I didn't
have before. You know, I am different, and I am
the person that I am, and I'm okay with that person.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
You kind of played in getting your first tattoo. We've
talked about this and it's come from a Javanese expression.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
What is it? It's a difficult one to translate. It's
I guess it's a phrase that's unique to a particular people,
but it translates roughly to be patient. Your destiny is
already determined or your fortune's already determined.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And so all that negative stuff was just part of
that that was already ordained. You had to go through
that to get to the next phase of your life,
which you're in now.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
Yeah, and I think that phrase kind of sums it up.
You know, everything has happened the way that it's supposed
to happen. And I guess it sums up that idea
year of acceptance, of accepting that this is the way
that I am, and this is the way that things
were supposed to happen, and exactly as it was supposed
to be, and it always exactly as it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
And there are probably hopefully thousands of people listening to
this podcast, A certain percentage will be saying, that's me
or that's my son. What does your experience offer those people?
Speaker 3 (40:33):
I guess hope, you know, I guess hope that there
is a future and there is a way forward, and
there is life beyond drugs, and you know, it might
not seem like it. Sometimes it might seem that things
might often look pretty bleak and dark, but you know,
with hard work and persistence and determination that there is
a way forward and there is a way through this,
(40:53):
and with some intent and determination, the future does look
pretty bright and.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
There is a place that you can call home. And
this is still a focus on this film. By the way,
you're preparing to go back to Perth. Now you don't
know what the future holds, Maybe you go back there.
I means since i've known you. You've been threatening to
go back to Perth to find that home that you
never really felt. I'm not sure it's there, and I
don't think you can adequately answer that question yet, but
you're still there's still another chapter of that restoration and
(41:22):
that sense of home, which I think a lot of
young people who get involved in crime and drugs, I
don't really like that, and they've destroyed their families and
there's not much to go back to. Fortunately, you have
rebuilt the bridges with your family, but that may not
be your ultimate destination.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Well, I think what this journey's really been about is
finding a sense of home within myself, you know, understanding
and accepting that this is the person that I am
and this is where I belong. You know. Home might
not be back in that particular place, but for a
long time I didn't feel at home within myself. And
I think that's really what I've been running around and
(41:59):
looking for and chasing, is that sense of acceptance within myself.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
I think going back to a place that fits the
traditional idea of home, the traditional context of home is
I guess a reference point for that. You know, my
family are there and it's a place where I spent
a good chunk of time growing up, and it might
for a lot of people that might be home. But
I think you know the understanding that there's no sense
(42:25):
of home within that, but there's a sense, you know,
maybe I've discovered a sense of home within myself, and
I think that'll be a big reference point for that
and a big understanding of sure.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I think one of the achievements has been to free
yourself of all that past, to give yourself options that
people in the criminal justice system simply don't have their
choices narrow down. But now at age thirty, it's trying
to make some decisions about what happens in the future.
And I'm just fascinated to see what happens. I've got
an inkling and I've watched you over these ten years,
(42:57):
and I'm just so proud of you.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Now, Thanks Adam, And I'm really grateful for all the
help and advice and guidance and support that you've given
me along the way. You know, you've made a big
impact on my life.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, there have been some moments while we've clashed. Yeah,
and I've seen that defiance and I've seen that kid
that was in that terrible spotshep. But you just you've
done it on You've pulled yourself up by your bootstraps.
And I think that's just incredibly admirable that I've never
said to this to any other person I've been given
on this podcast with grumbing Adam shand I do love you.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
I love you too, Adam.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Thanks, Matte, we'll leave it there. Thanks so much for
your time, mate. Yeah, I can't wait to see this film.
The Long Road at Home will be in cinemas at
a date to be fixed in the future, still in progress,
but it's going to be a fantastic journey. And I
think it's just it offers so much, and Tom's story
offers so much to all those people out there who
are battling with this. Don't give up on your children.
(43:48):
Try your best. You're going to make mistakes, you will,
and they'll continue to disappoint you and cause your dramas.
But I think what I love about Tom experiences they
have stuck the journey. There have been moments where they
it's been very tough, but they're still there. They're still
in this corner even though the thicket sometimes and I'm
really proud of them as well. But so you know,
(44:08):
I love your kids as best you can give them
second chance, third chance, as many chances as they need,
because the potential is there. If love is there, What
can I say? What can I say? Oh?
Speaker 3 (44:20):
I think I think what this is really about is
not so much about drugs, And you know, I think
it's about finding a way as a young man. And
that's the thing that all young men struggle through, you know,
with the lack of guidance and rituals, and you know,
I guess male role models to some extent as well,
and it's it's not an easy thing to find you
as a young man in a modern day and age.
(44:41):
You know, that's something that led me down this pretty
dark path. But yeah, I mean I guess I've been
able to find my way forward and find a path.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Well said, as Tom says, stay patient, your fortune is
already ordained. Thank you for listening. If you have a
crime you want to commit, don't do it. If you
have a crime you want to report, call crime Stoppers
one need to hundred, triple three, triple zero. I do
take the very seriously. Police will attend to your information.
(45:12):
But if you don't trust the coppers please send me
an email Adam Shanner writer at gmail dot com. Thank
you for listening. This has been real crime with Adam
shann
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