That evening, Brisbane turned purple.

The Story Bridge reflected across the river as the full moon rose, and for a moment it was mesmerising. 

Incredibly beautiful and incredibly sad. 

Because we weren't there celebrating. 

We were remembering people who were missing.

 

How I became involved

My involvement with International Overdose Awareness Day began during my Social Work placement with QuIVAA in 2025. 

One of my placement projects was to provide a little help with International Overdose Awareness Day at Queensland Parliament House and

somewhere along the way, I suggested to Emma Kill that she meet two people who had been part of my life for almost 20 years — my beautiful friends

Pat and Les.

 

Pat and Les started as my neighbours and became family very quickly.  My children know them as Aunty Pat and Uncle Les.  They've been there for birthdays, first and last days of school, graduations and more dance concerts than anybody should reasonably have to sit through. 

 

They had also experienced something no parent should have to experience.  They had lost their son, Ian, to a drug overdose.  The original plan was for Pat and Les to speak at Parliament House in 2025.  But in July that year, Pat suffered a serious fall while in England.  She wasn't home and she wasn't well enough to participate. 

They still wanted to tell Ian's story. 

So we carried the idea into 2026.

And then Emma came up with something much bigger.

Emma developed the idea for a short documentary and engaged filmmaker Connor Ashleigh to bring it to life.

I introduced Emma to Pat and Les over coffee.

From there, Emma and filmmaker Connor Ashleigh took the idea and ran with it.  The Threads Between Us is QuIVAA’s baby, it was made by peers with their personal stories of overdose.

 

But somehow, this little placement project I'd started working on the year before grew into something much bigger — and part of the documentary was even filmed at my home.  There was something quite surreal about watching this story unfold, with two people I love enormously sharing one of the most painful parts of their lives.

 

From there, Emma and filmmaker Connor Ashleigh took the idea and ran with it.  The Threads Between Us is QuIVAA's baby — a short documentary made by peers sharing their personal stories of overdose.

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Somehow, this little peer project I'd had a few bits and pieces to do with the year before grew into something much bigger — and part of the documentary was even filmed at my home.

There was something quite surreal about watching this story unfold, with two people I love enormously sharing one of the most painful parts of their lives.

 

Then, on 31 August 2026, I sat in Queensland Parliament House surrounded by people with lived and living experience, families, workers, volunteers, advocates, researchers, politicians and leaders from across the alcohol and other drugs sector. 

And people who were there because somebody they loved was missing.

I watched Pat and Les share Ian's story on screen.

It is difficult to describe what that felt like.

Its even harder to describe watching them give their speech. 

People laughed when Pat talked about Ian getting a guitar for his 16th birthday, and cried when they spoke about how he was missing from Les’ 80th birthday celebrations.

 

Ian

One of the things Pat and Les wanted people to understand was that Ian wasn't an overdose statistic.

He was their son.

He was a dad.  A brother.  A partner.  A grandson, nephew, cousin and mate.

He was a boilermaker.  He worked hard.  He grew up surrounded by mates and family.

He was loved.

As Pat said that morning:

“When we talk about somebody dying from a drug overdose, sometimes the person themselves seems to disappear from the story.”

And when Ian died, the loss didn't end on the day he died.

It appeared again at birthdays.  Christmases.  Father's Days.  Family celebrations.  First and last days of school.

In all those moments when someone thinks:

Ian should be here for this.

That's something overdose statistics can never show.

There is a whole group of people standing behind every person who dies.

Keeping somebody alive is not the same as approving of their drug use.

Pat and Les don't pretend to be drug-policy experts.

In fact, one of the things that makes their perspective so powerful is that they aren't.

They're parents who have had to learn things they desperately wish they'd known before their son died.

They've learned about overdose, naloxone, drug checking and harm minimisation.  They've listened to people with lived and living experience.

And Pat expressed something that morning that cuts through an enormous amount of noise surrounding drug use:

“Keeping somebody alive and approving of their drug use are two completely different things.”

That is harm minimisation.

It doesn't require us to pretend drug use is safe.

It asks us to recognise that people use drugs — and that their lives remain valuable while they do.

 

Going underground

Then Les stood up.

Les is a retired underground coal miner, and he explained harm minimisation in the language of a man who had spent decades working in a dangerous environment.

“Mining is dangerous.

We all knew that.

But we didn't make the mines safer by standing at the top saying, ‘Going underground is dangerous.  Don't go down there.’

Because we were going down there.”

So they checked for gas.

They installed ventilation.

They used safety equipment.

They developed training and procedures.

And when they learned a better way to stop somebody being injured or killed, they used it.

None of those things made underground mining safe.

They made it safer.

There's a difference.

Les wasn't suggesting that drug use is harmless.  Quite the opposite.

His point was extraordinarily simple.

If people are going underground anyway, telling them not to go underground isn't a safety system.

We use the tools available to reduce the chance that they die.

• Naloxone.

• Drug checking.

• Overdose education.

• Peer support.

• Treatment.

• Accurate information.

• Human connection.

And, perhaps most importantly, the opportunity to still be here tomorrow.

Because while somebody is alive, things remain possible.

They can ask for help.  They can enter treatment.  They can make another decision.  They can recover.  They can go home to their family.

Once somebody dies, none of those possibilities remain.

Pat and Les know that better than most.

 

Worth saving now

I've worked in the alcohol and other drugs sector for more than 20 years.

I've worked across harm minimisation, treatment, community services and therapeutic programs, and I've had the privilege of knowing and learning from countless people who use drugs, people in recovery, families, peers and workers.

I certainly don't have all the answers.

But there are some things I believe very strongly:

People who use drugs are not scary.

Stigma causes harm.

Overdoses aren’t statistics.

Information matters.

Connection matters.

Keeping somebody alive matters.

And we don't have to wait until somebody stops using drugs before deciding their life is valuable.

 

Pat and Les ended their speech that morning with words that I don't think I could improve upon:

“People who use drugs don't become worth saving after they've stopped using.

They're worth saving while they're using too.  Our Ian was.”

 

The Purple River

That night, Brisbane landmarks were illuminated purple for International Overdose Awareness Day.

I stood watching the Story Bridge reflected across the river beneath a full moon.

After everything that had happened, it was incredibly beautiful.

And incredibly sad.

Because remembrance matters.

Saying people's names matters.

Giving families space to tell their stories matters.

But remembrance can't be where our responsibility ends.

The purple lights eventually go out.

The people we've lost are still gone.

And the people who use drugs today still deserve the opportunity to come home.

Les's mining analogy really is as simple as it sounds:

People are going underground.

Our job is to do everything we reasonably can to make sure they come back up