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Herbal high to rock bottom

The flight attendant who lost her job after becoming addicted to party pills tells us her story

For 25 years, Anna oacArthur was on top of the world in her job as an Air New Zealand flight attendant – until she was offered benzylpiperazine (BZP) “party” pills at a dinner party and her life began a downward spiral.

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“I was told they were herbal, legal and available from the local dairy so I assumed they’ be pretty harmless and safe. I had no idea they would eventually cost me my health and career,” she says. Now recovered, Anna hardly fits the expected profile of a drug addict – she is 48 years old, immaculately dressed and the devoted mother of a 12-year-old daughter.

When Anna first tried BZP party pills, which have euphoric and stimulant effects similar to amphetamine, the drugs were legal, and she admits immediately liking the way they made her feel. “They made me stay up most of the night feeling very sociable. I had heaps of fun. I loved them.”

one month after that fateful evening, Anna, who was a first-class international and domestic flight attendant, bought her own party pills on the way to a barbecue and, within a year, she was a habitual user.  “It started off being once a month,” she recalls. “Then it was every 10 days. Then I started having cravings for them and it became every weekend. And by the time I went into rehab, it was almost every day. Flying is very tiring and I loved the endless energy they provided.

“I tried to use them only on my days off. I would take them to get my cleaning and gardening done faster, to leave me more time for my art, mosaics and jewellery. I never took them at work but by the time I reported for a 12-hour shift, I had the effects of chronic fatigue.

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“once I was at home I would crash, but a few days later, I would buy more. I knew I was going down the wrong path but I had no motivation or energy without the pills. “I would tell myself that I’d give up next weekend or that I could give up any time I liked. At rehab I learned that these are called ‘permission-giving thoughts’,” explains the attractive blonde. “I used to believe them, but I was in denial.”

Anna went to private counselling sessions to try to give the pills up on her own, but found she couldn’t stay off them for long. “The airline had told staff that if we had a problem we needed to tell them and that we would be looked after, but if we were caught through random drug testing we were likely to face instant dismissal.

“For me, it wasn’t about the drug testing though – I thought I’d pass becasue the pills were legal. The reason I decided to reveal my problem was because I realised my life was becoming unmanageable. I needed help. “I had reported late for duty once and slept though my alarm clock on another occasion – my usually high performance at work was slipping.

“I sat at home one afternoon looking out of the window for hours, summoning the courage to tell the airline, and I finally picked up the phone. The company doctor asked to see me straightaway.” Anna was relieved from flying duties and was accepted into the airline’s drug and alcohol programme.

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“You don’t automatically get into the programme when you self-declare – it is at the company’s discretion. For the first year, the airline bent over backwards to support me,” says Anna. She made an agreement with Air New Zealand that required her to attend 90 recovery meetings in 90 days. At her own expense, she also flew to oinneapolis, US, for a four-week course at a rehabilitation centre. But the hardest part of Anna’s recovery came when she was home again and trying not to succumb to temptation.

“It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. But I just kept going to recovery meetings and that kept me on track, along with the support of my partner Dave and a recovery sponsor. It is difficult to stop, but it’s even harder to stay stopped.”

Anna suffered another setback when she was diagnosed with kidney cancer. “I think it may have been linked to the pills because BZP can damage your kidneys,” she says. But thankfully, after surgery in which one of her kidneys was removed, Anna made an amazing recovery and, at the end of last year,  he felt ready to return to flying. “I had recovered from cancer and the airline’s drug and alcohol agency was confident about my return to flying duties in six weeks’ time,” she says. But instead, three days before Christmas, Anna was called to a management meeting and dismissed. “I remember walking out of head office feeling absolutely devastated and thinking, ‘What was the point of it all?'” she recalls.

“It was also disappointing for the people who helped me, including the company doctor and the Flight Attendants’ Union, which believed in me and financed my Employment Court case against the airline.” Air New Zealand defended its decision, saying there was no date for Anna to return to fl ying and they couldn’t keep her job open forever. An Employment Tribunal in october accepted the airline’s argument and ruled against Anna.

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Although she was disappointed to lose her case, Anna has made the brave decision to go to law school next year. “I am strong, healthy and very excited about my future,” she says. “I don’t drink alcohol, smoke or take drugs and don’t regret being honest with the airline, even though it cost me my much-loved career. “Party pills could have taken me to pretty dark places that I have no wish to visit. It has been a painful ride, but it has also made me very empathetic towards people struggling with addiction.”

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