At the peak of his addiction, Chris Ellis was smoking ice and then topping the high with anything he could get his hands on — cocaine, ecstasy, GHB, even smoking heroin.
He knew he was an addict and was desperate for help. Then he found solace in an unlikely place — sitting in his lounge room with a paintbrush in one hand and a blank canvas in the other.
His powerful acrylic self-portrait — a showcase of the emotions he was grappling with as a drug addict — has now become a defining marker on his path to recovery.
"It's a self-portrait but not in the physical sense," Mr Ellis said.
"It captures emotionally what I was feeling at the time.
"When I painted it, I had been awake for the best part of a week and was under the influence of a lot of different substances.
"I remember I was on the lounge room floor feeling lost and helpless and I needed to get these feelings out.
"I didn't know how I was going to do it. I wasn't in a state to speak about it. I just picked up the paintbrushes."
The striking image has been adapted for use in a mobile projection project set to light up city laneways, footpaths, and buildings across Melbourne's CBD as part of Beyond the Stigma — Laneway Light.
The event, which runs until August 31, has been coordinated by one of Australia's leading community health services, cohealth, to mark International Overdose Awareness Day.
It aims to humanise the impact of illicit drug dependency on addicts, their friends, and family.
Mr Ellis, who eventually sought help through rehabilitation clinic Odyssey House, said the road back had been challenging, but it was worth it.
"It's been a rollercoaster, to be honest, but when I think about how tough things are now, in comparison to the 10 years before, it has nothing on it."
Mr Ellis said his spiral into addiction started when he first used recreational drugs but it became worse in his mid-20s when he was introduced to methamphetamine.
"In the space of a year of using that, I was in the depths of an addiction," he said.
Mr Ellis said he was fortunate to grow up in a family where conversations about drugs and alcohol and addiction were normalised but in some ways that made his addiction harder because, unlike so many others, he wasn't in denial.
"It didn't make it any easier," he said.
"It still took me the best part of 10 years to get control of it and get the help that I needed."
Long road back
Without any formal training, Mr Ellis said he was grateful his artwork had become an important outlet.
"Art has grounded me," he said.
"When I was feeling desperate and hopeless or awake for days, it was the one thing that helped me find my way through."
As well as working in demolition, he is also now completing a diploma in community services.
Mr Ellis said he had learned a lot about the impact of addiction since.
"It's difficult sometimes to communicate with addicts. They don't want to speak to people, only push them away, but you have to keep up that communication," he said.
"Somebody dear to me once said communication is like an elastic band — it can only stretch so far before it breaks.
"With addicts, you don't want that band to break. You have to keep up the communication no matter what. Don't let that elastic band break."
Mr Ellis's work will be among 100 paintings, photos, and imagery from 29 artists projected into public spaces around the Melbourne CBD.
A fixed light projection will light up a wall in Westwood Place.
Chief executive of cohealth Nicole Bartholomeusz said the installation aimed to create conversations about drug stigma and advocate for health-based responses to drug use.
"Drug dependence is a diagnosable health condition, but is too often portrayed as a personal choice or moral failure," Ms Bartholomeusz said.
"It pushes people further away from the health services and support they need, and into darker corners of the community where they are at greater risk of overdose.
"This project has empowered people to express their point of view, and to recast commonly held stereotypes about people who use drugs."
Ms Bartholomeusz said the artists who contributed ranged in age from nine to 65 .
"Some of the contributors are homeless, some are in rehab, some are survivors of abuse, some are studying their PhDs, some are family members of people who have died of a drug overdose," she said.
"The one thing they all have in common is that they have been affected by drug dependence. It is our great privilege to be able to bring their stories and creative contributions to public spaces all over the CBD."
The digital installation will also be viewable online from 6pm on Thursday, August 25 via the cohealth website.
Find out more about Beyond the Stigma — Laneway Light here.
