The following is a statement presented in a public hearing for the Inquiry into the health impacts of alcohol and other drugs in Australia.
I’d like to begin by saying thank you to the members of the committee for allowing me to share my son’s, Dylan’s, story.
Dylan was only 26 when alcohol addiction took his life in April 2022.
While growing up, there was no way of knowing that Dylan’s life would be cut so short. He loved his family, had a number of interests and was overall a well adjusted child. However, once he was about 14, it became evident that he was struggling at school, with the end result being that he would actually leave school.
The culmination of these events led him to become extremely depressed, and his anxiety was also severe. At this time, he was looking for a way to manage his mental health problems, which coincided with his introduction to alcohol. Some of his peers were experimenting with alcohol, so he did join in. I guess that’s a very common thing to do. But the initial relief he received by drinking alcohol reinforced his desire to continue drinking.
In his adolescent mind—and I do want to emphasise he had an adolescent mind—Dylan had found a way to manage his mental health issues. I understand this is because initially alcohol works to increase dopamine receptors. However, after long-term chronic use, more and more needs to be consumed to gain the same effect. I actually recently heard this referred to as alcohol-seeking behaviour.
Now in his early 20s, Dylan was completely—and I mean completely—incapacitated by his alcohol use disorder. You’ve got to imagine someone as young as that, please.
Sadly, around this time—this is one of the worst things—he was completely socially isolated. I sometimes used to wonder whether the isolation was worse than the alcohol. It increased, compounded and reinforced his need to drink.
Emotionally, it nearly killed me when he would say things to me like: ‘Mum, please don’t ever leave me. You’re all I’ve got.’ By this stage, I would describe him as being completely imprisoned by his addiction. He hated waking up knowing what he would have to go through each and every single day, more of the same, having to seek alcohol, having to go through that process and feeling like he had quite a meaningless life.
By 25, Dylan was aware that he was losing the fight with his alcohol addiction. He would say things like: ‘I’ve finally hit the wall, Mum. I’m screwed.’
When I reflect back, Dylan repeatedly fell through the gaps in the system. He engaged with so many alcohol services. He attended several rehabs, and he was always at the GP, as I felt it was important to monitor his health. I did a lot of reading, and I did know, to some extent, what was going on with his liver. I knew that by this stage it was quite inflamed.
He went through years of stigmatisation, even—would you believe—by quite professional people who you wouldn’t consider as people that would stigmatise him.
Tests that should and could have been performed to prevent his liver going from compensated to decompensated were rarely performed. In terms of community mental health and mental health facilities, he was overlooked due to his problems being considered purely alcohol related and not mental health related, although it was profoundly evident that his alcohol misuse was associated with his mental health. It couldn’t be separated.
He was assessed as ‘not at risk’, meaning he wouldn’t be admitted to hospital. I also want to mention that there were two GPs who at one stage attempted to have Dylan sectioned, however that was overturned during his mental heath assessment at the hospital.
When he did finally present at his GP with end-life liver disease, which wasn’t recognised as end-life liver disease, potentially life-saving tests were again not carried out. He had two months at that time. He was given a referral to a gastroenterologist at the hospital, but it was never considered an urgent case, even though when he was examined by the doctor he was so unwell that he couldn’t even cope physically with the doctor pressing on his liver. He still wasn’t considered unwell enough for immediate hospitalisation. He hadn’t eaten for over a week. His toxins were clearly visible, and his eyes were yellowing.
Two weeks went by at that stage, where something may or may not have been able to prevent him dying, however he was left to deal with his now critical health situation by himself.
Sarah my oldest daughter and I got to the point where we convinced him to go to hospital . Unfortunately because of Dylan’s negative experience with going to Wollongong Hospital, we took him to St Vincent’s in Sydney.
Both my daughters were so impacted by what was happening and so Sarah made the decision to take time off work and Caitlin, my youngest who was studying nursing got on a flight home as soon as she could.
Even then, as sick as he was, he couldn’t leave the house without the security of knowing he had alcohol with him, if you can even imagine that. Tests conducted confirmed my worst nightmare that Dylan had a significant liver injury.
We had the scans— ‘significant’ was one of the words, ‘liver injury’ was the other one. Regardless of this, we were told by the RPA team—I’m only speaking factually here—that he would not be considered for a liver transplant, based on his history with alcohol. Lots of things around his history took priority over the fact that he was only 26, and, sadly, that he could have turned things around. It was just not even considered.
Anyway, it feels surreal—the whole thing. Right at the end, as a mother—that task of going back up to palliative care, where he only spent one day, and seeing his body laid out and it was just yellow. I remember thinking that he looked so young; how could somebody so young have lost a life to this hideous disease? It still feels surreal, the process of picking out his casket and choosing the clothes he would wear. The pain is still, as you can see, inconceivable.
But unfortunately, this is my reality. Dylan can’t speak, obviously, and I just need to be that voice now for him and others, because this does affect not just men in their 40s and 50s, which is the stereotype, this is affecting young people now.
He was really adamant that we considered warning people about the effects of alcohol because he couldn’t ever see why this was ever disregarded, when it has been picked up by the tobacco industry and everything. Anyway, that is the case; it has not been put on alcohol, as we know. He always felt that it had the potential to save lives.
He did strongly promote that, and young people he felt— especially young people, because he was young—really deserved to know the health risks, as we do with cigarettes. He couldn’t distinguish what the difference was between knowing what alcohol could do as opposed to what cigarettes could do. It’s insanity that it’s not on there already.
I want to conclude by saying thank you to the committee for taking the time to listen. I’m genuinely grateful to have had this opportunity and I’m so thankful to be here. Thank you so much.
