THE QUIET CASUALTIES OF HEROIN ADDICTION

They make quite a sight, the man and his son on the way to see Essendon
play. Wayne Scott, 31, in his wheelchair, and his eldest boy, Aiden, 8,
riding on the back.

Aiden helps his father sort his money, produce the admission price for the
tickets. He lights his father's cigarette. That's just how it is when your
father is brain-damaged. "They're fine," says Mr Scott of Aiden and his
younger brother, Austin, 3. "They don't know what happened. I haven't told
them."

The Reservoir father of two, a former upholsterer, has not long been in
this situation, though in late 1998 things were much worse. "I was stuck
like this," he says in slurred speech, pushing his legs out stiff and
clenching his hands.

This is the other side of the heroin story, the one you don't hear about in
debate on injecting rooms and news of mounting deaths. It is the story of
users who suffer hypoxic brain injury from overdose, and are quietly left
to the care of families or institutions for the rest of their lives.

More Australians are being admitted to rehabilitation centres after heroin
overdoses. "A lot of people think you overdose and get up and walk away, or
you die," Mr Scott says. "That's not always the case."

A Melbourne study comparing 10people who suffered brain injury after heroin
overdose with others who suffered brain injury from other causes, such as
heart attacks, has found that the heroin group suffer more severe physical
problems, at least initially. Memory failure is marked.

A Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre speech pathologist, Patricia O'Brien,
says there is a stigma attached to those who suffer brain damage from heroin.

"It's hard to manage in rehabilitation because many people keep using," she
says. "I think there's always a prejudice."

A week before Mr Scott's almost fatal overdose, he was about to move into a
house with his then fiancee, the mother of his two children. Now, Mr Scott
lives with his parents, Clive and Lorraine, has a carer, and the engagement
has been called off.

Mr Scott says he was an occasional, recreational heroin user.

His parents say that, in the weeks after the overdose, they feared their
son's life support would have to be turned off. But he came out of his
coma. But it would be some months before the family could be assured he was
going to make any improvement.

Mr Scott gradually got better, using speech therapy and physical
rehabilitation. Now he aims to compete in cycling in the 2004 Paralympics
in Athens, if he can raise enough money to buy a $4000 modified bicycle.

At times, Mr Scott is frustrated because people mistake his slurred speech
for an intellectual deficit.

"His thinking brain is 101per cent," says his father. "He hasn't lost that
part of his brain."

Lorraine Scott urges parents not to abandon their children. "I really
wanted to get out and sing out, 'help your kids and support them'," she says.

"You don't turn away from your kids. A lot disown their kids over drugs.
That's why half of them walk the street, frightened to tell their parents."

Aiden and Austin are oblivious to society's judgment. They still hug their
father on weekend visits and tell him they love him.

Australia's heroin drought is continuing, according to Melbourne experts.
Margaret Hamilton, of the Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, says more
users have turned from heroin to injecting sleeping pills, antidepressants,
cocaine and amphetamines. In the case of prescription drugs such as
temazepam, this was leading to serious physical complications such as blood
clots and thrombosis.