Noffs Matthew - Addicted?: how addiction affects every one of us and what we can do about it

CONTENTS

The Noffs Foundation is a leader in providing drug and alcohol services for young people in Australia. Working in the social sector has been part of MATT NOFFS life for as long as he can remember. The Noffs Foundation was founded in 1970 by his grandparents, Reverend Ted Noffs and Margaret Noffs. The couple established Sydneys Wayside Chapel, set up the first drug referral centre in Sydney and co-founded Lifeline in 1963. Work in the drug rehabilitation field was continued by Matts parents, Mandy and Wesley Noffs.

As CEO of the Noffs Foundation for a new generation, Matt established (with his partner, Naomi) and now runs an early intervention service known as the Street University, in Sydneys west and southwest, ACT and southeast Queensland, which aims to reconnect kids with their communities and help them discover their innate capacity.

Partnering Matt in this endeavour is psychologist and clinical services manager KIERAN PALMER. Kieran has dedicated his career to supporting some of the most vulnerable young people in the country, along with their families. Kieran has worked on the front lines of addiction and trauma as a psychologist and program manager, and now has clinical oversight of all Noffs programs nationwide.

HarperCollinsPublishers

First published in Australia in 2018

by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

ABN 36 009 913 517

harpercollins.com.au

Copyright The Ted Noffs Foundation 2018

The right of Matthew Noffs and Kieran Palmer to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Cover design by Mark Campbell, HarperCollins Design Studio

Cover image by Jan Stromme / Getty Images

This book is dedicated to

the lives behind the stories

Our First Drug Cartel

1793. Sydney Town. A young soldier watches a convict prod a possums head with the tip of his toe. Its entrails hang out of its body and a spatter of red blood mingles with the yellow dirt.

It isnt just the convicts who are keen to eat a dingos leftovers. The soldiers are on the same rations as the prisoners. Food and water are both running low.

Lieutenant John Macarthur doesnt want to admit it, but the leftover possum looks half enticing to him too. Then he winces at the thought and looks away, tucking his hands behind his back.

He squints into the sun. Raising his hand to shield his face from the glare, he looks out over the harbour of the young colony of New South Wales.

The sun is strong today, but the heat is countered by the lightest breeze, which passes over the hill Macarthur stands upon. Clouds dont dominate the sky like they did in Britain. Sir Joseph Banks must have been lying about how similar New South Wales is to Europe. The cool weather of home has found its antithesis in this remote island greenhouse.

The harbour has mostly been a blank sheet of blue since the arrival of Britains first prisoner ships.

Today, however, the blue expanse is broken by an alien vessel. A ship named Hope is resting out there, her anchor down.

Everything the ship offers feels like hope. But Hopes offering will turn out to be the harbinger of our ongoing despair.

Young Macarthur his face sharp, pointed, almost feminine stares fixedly at the ship. The noises of the street the sick prisoners, the desperate women offering themselves up cheaply none of it is stealing his attention.

Macarthur is payroll officer for Australias first police force the New South Wales Corps. He reports directly to Lieutenant Grose, the head of the corps. Grose has also been head of the colony since Governor Phillip left for England some months back, exhausted and in poor health. But Phillip has left the wrong man in charge.

The colony is now on the verge of starvation. If they dont get the flour off that ship, there wont be any supplies for months. It will spell death for many both prisoners and soldiers.

The enterprising skipper of the Hope is a Yankee. And he knows he has something no prisoner or free person, First Australian or European invader can resist.

Grog.

The skipper has pressed young Macarthur into a corner: Ye aint buying no flour until ye buy all our rum.

This young British soldier isnt about to be hoodwinked by an American traitor. But he has to think quickly before the Hope sets sail, and her treasure with her.

The Yankee is playing hardball with the little colony. The rum is far less important than the food. Currency is in shorter supply than flour, and they need to hang on to all the coin they can save. Sydney Town is in its infancy, only five years old. It holds no great monuments no Opera House, no Harbour Bridge. To the rest of the world, its nonexistent. Nothing. A pit stop for this travelling Yankee salesman.

This is the corps and Macarthurs moment to do the right thing and pass the much-needed resources on to the settlement at an affordable price.

But will they take it?

A sudden smile curls around the edges of Macarthurs lips. Thats it. He makes his way down the dirt track and into Groses wooden hut.

All right, Ive got it.

Grose is hardly paying attention. The flies are swarming around him. His sweating double chin spills over his collar and his wide eyes are glazed over. Hes drunk again.

Macarthur expounds his idea: Were going to snooker the bugger.

Macarthurs colleagues have rightly described their twenty-something fellow officer as rapacious as a shark.

You like rum, dont you, sir? the young lieutenant asks his commander.

Grose smiles and almost dribbles at the same time. What isnt there to like about rum? It isnt gin, and gin is what everyone in the colony is used to. Gin it isnt, but rum will do the job.

Macarthur leans over Groses large desk. Staring into the commandants soulless eyes, he continues: Fuck the Governors orders were going to get this out ourselves.

As long as Grose gets an ongoing supply of grog, Macarthur is free to do as he pleases. And he does. He hatches a plan to buy the Hopes rum, cloth and flour at its cheapest price. Instead of passing out the rum and rations as Governor Phillip has asked of him, Macarthur will transform the New South Wales Corps into the only distributor of grog in the fledgling nation.

The twenty-five year old soldier, who now controls not only the purse strings but also the food and the drink, will use his position to amplify his wealth and power. Macarthur will sell the rum at wait for it 1200 times the price he purchased it for. He will buy it with Britains money and return the profit to the members of the corps mainly himself.