ABC Goldfields-Esperance: Abby Richards
)For almost three decades Jo-Anne Mclaren was stuck in a world of drugs, a path she is now helping her son escape as he wrestles with the same problem.
For decades Ms Mclaren tried everything to get better. She went to counselling, rehab, and tried medication, but nothing seemed to work.
By the age of 31 she was admitted into secular rehab, a non-religious rehabilitation centre.
Not long after she was released she relapsed into another cycle of drug abuse.
While things seemed to be going well on the surface, it was not what it appeared to be.
"My addiction looked very different. I managed to get myself a Homeswest [public housing] house so it would appear from the outside that I was doing okay," she said.
Ms Mclaren found herself cleaning houses for a Christian couple in Esperance until she was 42.
ABC Goldfields-Esperance: Andrew Tyndall
)Realising she needed help and not knowing where to turn, she applied for secular rehab again in Perth, hoping this time it would be different.
The facility needed her to be clean on arrival, but she was still using.
In despair she found herself crying on the phone to the family she worked for — a moment that changed her life for the better.
"They came and picked me up and took me home to their place," she said.
But more bad news was on its way.
"The middle of the next night they [the couple] came and told me that my house had been burnt down," Ms Mclaren said.
Finding religion in rehab
The couple encouraged her to try a Christian rehabilitation centre instead of the secular rehab she had tried and failed in.
She eventually was born again in the Pentacostal tradition, finding religion in Esperance's Teen Challenge program which Ms Mclaren described as the hardest thing she ever endured.
Seven years after exiting rehab, she got a job working at Wongutha Christian Aboriginal Parent-Directed School (Wongutha CAPS) in Gibson as a hostel parent.
She was there for the past three years.
But that has come to an end with Ms Mclaren resigning to care for her eldest son, himself walking a similar path into drug addiction.
Family comes first
Currently in recovery, her son has joined Betel Shalom, a Christian rehab centre in Victoria.
Mother and son are both heading there soon to help out in a pilot program similar to what saved Ms Mclaren.
"If there's one thing these kids [from Wongutha CAPS] have taught me it is how to put family first," she said.
"So I have an opportunity at the moment to put family first and walk alongside my son in Victoria."
