After completing my apprenticeship as a mechanical fitter and welder, I found local work around Brisbane. Most of the jobs took me back into the water industry, sometimes working in wastewater treatment and other times on the fresh water side. I finally had a trade behind me and was earning reasonable money, but before long the gas boom out west started offering opportunities that were hard to ignore. There was serious money to be made, along with rosters of three weeks on and two weeks off.

To me, the roster sounded perfect. Working locally often meant six days a week, whereas working out west would give me two full weeks at home with my kids and Jenny. At least, that was how I justified it. I could earn considerably more money and still convince myself I was gaining more quality time with the people who mattered to me. What I failed to understand was that being physically home for two weeks meant very little if I wasn't actually present in the ways the people around me needed me to be.

Those two weeks at home also gave my addiction room to grow. I had good money coming in, plenty of time off and very little stopping me from doing whatever I wanted until it was time to fly back to work. Substance use became increasingly tied to my time at home. I would spend my break enjoying that freedom, then suddenly have to pull myself together when it was time to return to camp. The first few days back were usually extremely tough as my body and mind adjusted from two weeks of using into three weeks of long hours, isolation and the strict routine of camp life.

My relationship with Jenny was also deteriorating. She hated me working away, and almost every goodbye seemed to end in an argument. I would leave Brisbane with things unresolved between us, then arrive back at camp already struggling physically while the silence between us played havoc with my mind. Instead of listening to what Jenny was trying to tell me, I kept convincing myself that earning good money made the sacrifice worthwhile. I thought I knew what was best for us, even when the person I was supposed to be building a life with was telling me otherwise.

Working away could be incredibly isolating. You could be surrounded by hundreds of people and still feel completely alone. Everyone had a life happening somewhere else, with partners, children, problems and responsibilities continuing while we were hundreds of kilometres away. During my time out west, there were workmates who tragically took their own lives. It was confronting and something that stayed with me. These were people with good jobs and good incomes, yet money couldn't protect them from whatever battles they were fighting inside themselves. Sometimes money isn't everything, although it would take me a long time to truly understand that.

For around a year and a half, I continued living that life. Then, just after Christmas, I flew back to camp expecting another normal three week stint. Almost as soon as I arrived, I walked straight into a mandatory substance test. I knew there was a very good chance I was going to fail, and sure enough, I did. Almost as quickly as I had arrived, I was put back on a plane and sent home.

Surprisingly, I didn't lose my job. I was given two weeks to provide a clean urine test, after which I would be allowed to return. Looking back, that should have been an enormous warning sign. My addiction had now followed me into my employment and put a well paying career at risk. But addiction has an incredible ability to distort your thinking. Instead of deciding that I needed to stop using, the lesson I took from the experience was that next time I needed to allow myself a couple more days off the gear before returning to work.

That was how I thought back then.

When I arrived home, I lied to Jenny about why I had been sent back. She knew me far too well to believe everything I told her, and it didn't take much for her to put two and two together. She was less than impressed. Once I had produced a clean test, it was time to leave again. Jenny drove me to the airport, and once again we argued. She was absolutely pissed with me. I boarded the plane expecting the usual silence for a while, believing that eventually things would settle down as they had before.

This time, they didn't.

The days passed and I heard nothing from Jenny. Then a week went by, followed by another. Her phone number changed and every attempt I made to contact her went nowhere. For the entire three weeks I was away, there was silence. I knew she was angry, but I still hadn't grasped just how far I had pushed her. Part of me probably believed that when I got home we would argue, talk things through and eventually carry on as we had so many times before.

When my rotation finally finished, I returned to Brisbane and went home. I put my key into the door of our unit, unlocked it and walked inside, only to find another family living there. For a moment, I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. I had returned to the place I still considered home, but it wasn't my home anymore.

Jenny had gone.

She had moved house, changed her phone number and cut all contact with me. There had been no final conversation and no opportunity for me to make another promise about changing. She had heard enough words from me. My inability to listen to what she needed had finally become too much, and she had decided the only way forward was to make a clean break.

I was devastated. I had spent so much time telling myself that I was working away for the people I loved that I hadn't noticed what it was costing me. I had convinced myself that earning more money meant I was providing a better life, but Jenny hadn't been asking me for a bigger pay packet. She wanted me home. She wanted me to listen. She wanted a partner who was actually part of the relationship rather than someone who kept deciding what was best for both of us.

Standing there and realising she had disappeared from my life forced me to face something I didn't want to admit. I had put money first while telling myself I was putting my family first. I thought I was building something for our future, but in the process I had damaged what we already had. By the time I finally understood how serious Jenny had been, she wasn't there anymore to tell me.

In my mind, I had put the final nail in the coffin of our relationship.

I didn't know how to deal with losing her, and by that stage of my life I had become very good at avoiding emotions I didn't want to feel. Substance use had become more than something I did for enjoyment. It had become a way of dealing with pain. Hurt, anger, loneliness, rejection and shame could all be pushed aside for a while if I used enough to numb myself. It never fixed anything, but at that point I wasn't interested in fixing the problem. I just didn't want to feel it.

With nowhere to live, I contacted a mate who had a spare room and agreed to rent it from him. He also happened to be someone I regularly got product from. At the time, I considered myself lucky. I had somewhere to sleep and a roof over my head at a time when everything else seemed to have fallen apart. What I didn't recognise was how dangerous that situation was for someone whose substance use was already becoming increasingly difficult to control.

Jenny was gone, but at least I had found somewhere to live. More importantly to the person I was at that time, I also had an easy way of dealing with the pain whenever I was home. I didn't have to sit alone and think about what I had lost or accept my part in losing it. I could numb myself and pretend for a few hours that none of it mattered.

Of course, it did matter.

I had chased the money believing it would help me build a better life, only to return home and discover that one of the most important parts of that life had disappeared while I was away. Instead of stopping and asking myself where things had gone wrong, I buried the hurt and carried on.

At the time, getting numb felt easier than facing reality.

I had no idea just how much that decision was eventually going to cost me