Overdoses kill friends who battled addiction

FRIENDS of two men who died of drug overdoses on Saturday night say the pair were friends who went to rehab together.

A friend, who wished to remain anonymous, said Benjamin Connelly and Leon Gow were close friends who com- pleted Mirikai rehab at Burleigh together to overcome their addictions.

They were desperate to be clean and were for around a year, until they gave in to the addiction that took their lives.

“They went to rehab together and were in recovery,” they said. “They obviously lapsed and this is the result.”

The friend said that neither man was a dealer as previously thought, but may have accidentally overdosed as a result of their lowered tolerance from being sober.

“The tolerance lowers after being clean for a while so a relapse is scary because death happens,” they said.

Mr Connelly had a poetry blog where he published original poems – sometimes multiple pieces in a day.

On August 27 he published a poem about his battle with addiction and wrote a personal note about how music was helping him overcome “different hurdles in life".

Devastated friends of Mr Connelly and Mr Gow said the men were compassionate and supportive, and though they were addicts they weren’t bad people.

“They were just in pain and lost,” one friend said.

“Drug addicts aren’t bad people it’s just the behaviours that are bad. Drugs steal the soul and breaks the hearts of all those involved.”