Michaela, who did not wish to use her surname, said ice, a highly purified crystalline form of the drug methamphetamine, was tearing her family apart.

Michaela broke down this week as she shared her heartbreaking story with the Bendigo Advertiser in the hope that the community would stand up and do something about the dangerous escalation of ice use.

She said ice was killing her 20-year-old son Andrew who had turned to crime to fuel his addiction.

He was involved in a central Victorian pharmacy hold-up earlier this year and has allegedly even resorted to stealing from his younger siblings.

“I just don’t know what to do any more,” Michaela said.

“Do I get a funeral plan and get ready to bury my son? 

“Because that’s what it comes down to. The way it’s going he’s going to be dead in the next six months.”

Michaela found out Andrew was doing ice, heroin and “everything else under the sun” about a year ago.

“I don’t understand why these kids do this, they’re throwing their lives away,” she said.

“I knew he was doing pot because I’d go into his house and see evidence of it.

“Then rumours started going around that he was using needles and I was over at his house one day and started finding syringe packs and all that sort of stuff.

“I walked out in disgust.”

Michaela said Andrew had arrived on her doorstep a few months ago, pleading for help.

“I took him up to the hospital and he was just in such a state,” she said.

“He was crying and saying, ‘Mum just give me a hot shot, just put me out of my misery, I can’t do this any more’.

“I sat up there with him for hours and got no help from the psychologist there who basically said, ‘Well, you’ve got to get clean before I lock you up’.

“He needed to be locked up because he didn’t want to do this any more.”

Michaela said her son turned up at her home about five weeks ago, covered in blood, and ended up stealing about $11,000 worth of household goods and medication.

“He’d been through the house,” she said.

“He took his sister’s Nintendo DS – the one prized possession that she owned – and he took it.

“He took my video camera, he actually took two, one of them had cassettes of my son I lost 10 years ago.

“The police went straight round to my son’s house and arrested him. He was sitting there with 

some of our stuff that he’d stolen.

“It’s heartbreaking and it affects everyone in the family. He’s got three younger siblings who absolutely adore him and now they’re left broken hearted.

“I’m lost, I’m frustrated, I’m angry.”

Michaela had hoped a stint in custody would help curb her son’s addiction but she claims magistrates are too lenient.

“I spoke to a detective and said, ‘OK, what are you going to do with him?’,” she said.

“He said, ‘He’s going to be locked up, he’s going to be held in remand, he won’t get out’.

“When I said, ‘Thankyou’ and he asked what I meant, I said, ‘If he’s in there he can’t get a hold of any of this crap, he’ll be safe in there’.

“But then his solicitor got him out and the magistrates and judges are too lenient – they’ve got to start punishing and stopping these idiots.”

Michaela said her relationship with Andrew was now standoffish at best and he was not the son she used to know.

“He’s become like this because of these drugs,” she said.

“Once when I heard he was out trying to score I got in my car and went for a drive.

“And I was going to run him down because I don’t know how to stop him.”

Michaela said the drugs made Andrew aggressive and even psychotic at times.

She said he’d tried detox programs but they didn’t work.

“This drug is destroying lives,” she said.

“It’s destroying families.”

All Michaela wants for Christmas is her son back, but she knows it’s not likely to happen.

“I want one Christmas where I’ve got all my kids together and there’s no hatred, there’s no arguing, there’s just peace,” she said.

“I’m over all the crap that goes down. It’s not fair.

“And I’m not going to get it – not while these drugs are doing this to him. It’s ruined everything.”

n Names have been changed to protect the identities of all parties mentioned in this report.