THERE is no greater heartache for a mother than seeing her children suffer.
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And for Ballarat mother Sharon, seeing ice destroy the lives of both her sons has been a nightmare she wishes she could forget.
“It has been really heartbreaking and I’m at a loss to know what to do,” she said.
“It upsets me like nothing else.”
Sharon’s sons, 20 and 26, have been using ice for more than a year.
In that short time they have destroyed their own lives and those closest to them.
Sharon recently took out an intervention order against one of her boys following constant threats to kill her.
“Just the change in their personalities has been so hard to see,” she said.
“They are so violent, so unforgiving, so chaotic, very threatening, very scary and unpredictable.”
She said her youngest son, who is currently clean after a recent detox, had once been addicted to heroin.
“That was pretty hectic, but nowhere near as bad as the ice,” she said.
“I hate to think what’s in this stuff because it just turns them crazy.
“Even now, after detox, he is still so confused as to what was reality and what wasn’t.”
Her youngest son’s addiction saw him using ice every day, often not sleeping for days on end.
She estimates her son spent as much as $600 a day to support his addiction.
“When he’d finally crash he’s sleep for two days and then it would be straight up, and straight back on it,” she said.
“I was at a loss.”
She said it was common for the boys to use together and that more often than not the results were disastrous.
“At one stage one of them grabbed a huge knife and chased the other with it, threatening to kill him,” she said.
“They were both crazed, completely out of control.
“Their lives revolved around ice.”
Sharon wanted to share her story with Ballarat in the hope it may save “only one” family from the hell she has been through.
“Even if my story only helps a mere few ... well that will make me happy.”