A $1000-a-week ice habit for eight years: Perth mum undergoes amazing transformation after kicking drug habit

PERTH mother Dee-anne Allender battled a $1000-a-week ice addiction for eight years. She kicked the habit and has undertaken an amazing transformation.

Before and after ... Dee-anne looks completely different.

HER first taste of ice came at 24, and at the height of her addiction she was using up to five times a day and spending at least $1000 a week to fund her habit.

It was a habit that lasted for eight long years.

Perth resident Dee-anne Allender, now 40, can still recall what made her break her addiction. She had been released from jail and quickly relapsed.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, the mother-of-four recalled the moment:

“There was that time I was at the train station, I was screaming at my dad over the phone. I just thought, you should just end your life by jumping in front of that train ... make it easier for everybody.

“I also had a near-death experience when I didn’t weigh my drugs and I lost all balance and hearing and collapsed.

“When I went to the clinic, the doctor said ‘that was a mini stroke’. I couldn’t walk or talk. I had to crawl into the shower and sit there with my clothes on for hours.”

Nine months at rehab helped her become drug free. Seven years later and she’s still clean.

Dee-anne Allender was hooked on crystal meth at the age of 24 for eight years.

While in the rehab clinic (that despite its name, caters to adults as well as teens) she met her husband, who was also an addict. But her heart was broken when he died of a heroin overdose just two years ago.

“I know what it’s like to be waiting at home wondering if (your loved one) is going to be coming home alive or if police will be knocking on the door,” she told Perth Now.

“It made me think what I put my own family through.”

The household that Allender grew up in was fairly strict. She was known among her friends as the “politician’s daughter” — her stepfather Gordon Hill was a former police minister and her mother Diane was the secretary for ex-premiers Carmen Lawrence and Geoff Gallop.

She was diagnosed with dyslexia at age eight and struggled throughout her schooling. She had trouble understanding the disability and thought she “must have been stupid”.

Soon her problems at school began to filter into her home life and at 15 she left home to stay with friends.

Eventually she turned to drugs, starting with marijuana and at 17 she became addicted to amphetamines.

In the thick of her addiction, the drugs took an enormous toll on her physically and mentally. Her hair started to fall out, her face sagged and at one point police had to restrain her in a holding cell because she was smashing her face against the door.

Dee-anne Allender, in black top, with her children Jewel, 13, Elliot, 9, Briallen, 17, Jessica, 21, and Jessica’s daughter, Aurora, eight months. Picture: Will Russell

“At first you think, ‘I’m not hurting anybody’. When you try to stop and realise you can’t, you know you’re in big trouble,” she told Perth Now.

“I actually did not think I was going to get out alive. But I always said if I did I would end up helping people.”

True to her word Allender now works in the reception at Fresh Start drug rehab clinic in Western Australia.

As well as the mum to four childred from nine to 21 years, she is also a proud grandmother to a gorgeous baby girl and says her family has a “beautifully normal” life, in a bustling household with her new husband and his kids.

Unfortunately the relationship with her mother and stepfather had not healed since she gave up drugs.

“My mum and stepfather have not been so forgiving,” she told the Daily Mail.

“Even after all these years, all the good times, it’s still very hurtful for them,” she said.