By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
KERRYN Redpath has come back from the other side of drugs and alcohol, the side that saw her in a hospital with her life hanging by a thread.
More than 30 years on, the Narre Warren South resident is re-publishing her autobiography Out of the Darkness as a learning tool for others as much as a therapeutic one for herself.
“Even though it’s been a long time since my addiction, I don’t forget what it was like to be addicted,” Ms Redpath said.
“The book just flowed. It was like my brain was hanging onto all these memories and once I wrote the book I could let them go.”
Ms Redpath’s book, first published in 2010, is harrowing and resonant in the way in which she describes her life during the height of her addiction.
Having survived two close encounters with death and multiple overdoses, Ms Redpath has made it her responsibility to tell her story to others as a warning and also as a symbol of hope.
Three years ago she began speaking at schools in the form of detailed seminars.
She said the reactions have been overwhelmingly positive.
“I’ve had three people that have overcome heroin addiction that have come up to me and thanked me,” she said.
“I understand the strain of living with an addiction and living with addicts. It’s an illness.”
Ms Redpath’s autobiography is available at various bookshops including Collins Booksellers in Berwick.
For more information visit www.daesy.com.au.
