Rehab brings hope after
Former meth addict Richshea Webster hit rock bottom and experienced her own “spiritual death” before kicking a habit that consumed her. With the help of her iwi, she managed to leave behind a life of gangs and drugs and is now using her experience to help others. Carmen Hall reports.
The pipe ripped Richshea Webster’s life apart and took a toll most would find unbearable. She has had the police at her door, been homeless and mixed up with gangs, and experienced “**** that only happens in the movies”.
Webster “licked meth bags and smoked meth stems” to muster the energy to get out of bed and go to rehab almost five years ago.
Sitting cross-legged in a Nga¯i Te Rangi office on an oversized tan leather chair in a black puffer jacket, blue jeans and bright white sneakers, she looks younger than her 33 years.
Her eyes are clear. She has been drug- and alcohol-free for four years, seven months and five days.
Webster had a partial stroke and dropped to 46kg when she was smoking meth but in her mind she still had it together.
“I was blind to it all and in denial.” Nga¯i Te Rangi social worker Glenn Shee supported Webster throughout her journey— the good times and bad. Now Webster is on the payroll as a peer support kaimahi, a job she got a year ago on Shee’s recommendation.
“It’s an honour and a privilege to be here. It’s taken a lot of hard mahi,” Webster said.
“It makes my heart really full. If I can help one person, I will be happy.”
Webster’s descent into addiction started young.
“I was getting blackout drunk when I was 12 and smoking weed every day by the time I was 15.”
Her life became chaos in 2016 when she became associated with gangs.
“I drove myself into the ground. I was a gang show pony. They took over my house and were doing drug deals in the kitchen. If one of the bros wanted my room I had to get out.”
She acted tough but “was really scared and terrified”.
An eviction from her rental provided an escape route but homeless stints in her car and couch surfing at motels brought their own challenges.
“I remember being in a motel on Cameron Rd. There were seven rooms of people, it was like one big party and everyone was using.
“I used to go to sleep at night clutching my handbag. I’d put my keys down my bra so they couldn’t steal my car. It was horrible.”
She said she had hit rock bottom. But an intervention saved her.
Shee managed to get Webster into Te Whare Oranga Nga¯kau in Rotorua
for three months — the only residential drug rehabilitation centre in the Bay.
“I listened because my life had got so unmanageable. I was heavy into the gangs and drugs . . . I lost everything. I had nothing and there was a spiritual death inside me.”
On the morning of her admission Webster “licked meth bags and smoked meth stems” to get out of bed.
In the carpark she saw a man “convulsing” on the ground and nearly pulled the pin.
She stuck it out but it was not without drama. She did not like the routines and 6am wake-ups.
“I was still really unwell and a sick person . . . I’d tell the kaimahi to ‘ **** off’ stupid lady, don’t wake me up, I’ll put your head through the wall.
“It was really horrible, angry, hurt stuff.”
Webster said she had to “suit up and show up and withdraw again”.
“It was either do that or die.
“[Across the road from the] rehab is a cemetery. There was no way I was ending up in that urupa¯.”
She said the programme focused on a lot of outdoor activities and cultural discovery.
“Once the fog had cleared and I had detoxed I really got into kapa haka. I found a sense of community, a sense of family.
“I dealt with the trauma of not knowing my father.”
Once Webster was released she reengaged with the Hamner Clinic in
Tauranga and graduated from its Intensive Outpatient Programme for the second time. She also completed various other courses.
A year ago Webster’s mother and nana died within days of each other.
“Those women both raised me and are pretty much all the family I have.”
Her face flickers and then hardens. “I’ve been through that tragedy but I am still clean.”
Webster’s goal of helping at least one person has perhaps begun already with Michelle Ramea.
The 34-year-old said she started selling ice (crystal meth) in Australia after losing her stevedoring job when a tumour was found on one of her fallopian tubes.
“I did it to survive because I didn’t qualify for the benefit . . . I was making enough to live and putting the rest back into it.”
Her life as a dealer came to a ghastly end when her supplier was fed “some misinformation” by others.
“I was tortured. They tricked me into a 20-foot container and bashed me with a homemade baton and a taser. My back and left ear was crushed but [I’m] lucky I have got strong shoulders.”
Now Ramea was in a happier place and had a welding job. She credited Nga¯i Te Rangi and Webster, who she knew from school.
The two reconnected when Ramea came back from Australia. When Webster started her recovery it inspired Ramea to also get clean.
“She made me see the best in myself . . .[and] helped me get back on my welding course.”
Both women now look forward to a brighter future, free from the demons meth wreaked on their lives.