The Way Through - An Excerpt

A chapter from The Way Through, my debut memoir about struggle, identity, and the lessons that shaped my 10 Principles of Recovery.

Live Well, Lead Better is a publication about leadership, culture and personal growth. Today I’m sharing something related, but a little different.

The Way Through (working title) is in the late stages of drafting and will be my debut book. It’s a memoir about struggle, recovery and identity, while also exploring my 10 Principles of Recovery that emerged from those experiences. Following is a chapter from that manuscript, and I’d genuinely love any feedback on the writing, impact, or simply what resonates with you as a reader.

The Way Through - Move, then begin

We were on the Hume Highway and barely past Kalkallo when I felt it for the first time.

Relief.

Not happiness exactly because happiness feels too neat for what it was. This was more like space opening up inside my chest as though I’d been clenching every muscle in my body for years and had finally loosened my grip without realising it.

The highway stretched out in front of us while the early morning slowly pushed the night away. Headlights cut through the fog and green road signs flashed past. The car was packed with bags, clothes and random bits of our life shoved wherever they’d fit. Monica sat beside me with her feet up on the dash, calm as ever, while I gripped the steering wheel like I was ultimately responsible for keeping the whole plan together. Ironically though there wasn’t much of a plan.

We had no jobs lined up in Brisbane and nowhere to live as such. and just a little bit of money courtesy of mum and dad.. All we had was a rough agreement that if we could find work and somewhere to live within two or so weeks, we’d stay. If not, we’d come home.

Privately, I didn’t want to come back.

I’d spent years wanting out of Melbourne. Back in school, escape had become its own fantasy. I used to imagine schools, friends, versions of myself. Somewhere nobody knew me as the awkward kid, the easy target, the boy who could get mocked, cornered or humiliated and somehow still be expected to laugh along with it. Later, the fantasy changed shape but not substance. I still wanted some clean break from everything that’d happened and from the person I’d slowly become while trying to survive it all.

Now, at twenty-two, I was finally doing something that felt like escape. Weirdly though, it didn’t feel dramatic at all. There was no movie moment. Just the road, the hum of tyres against bitumen and Monica beside me while the early morning lights of Melbourne faded in the rear-view mirror.

I glanced across at Mon and she caught me looking.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just looking forward to it, I guess.”

“Do you reckon we’ll stay up there?” I asked a moment later.

She shrugged. “Who knows. It’s a fate thing. We get jobs and find somewhere to live, we stay. We don’t, we come back.”

A fate thing.

That was Monica all over. She had this ability to sit with contentment inside uncertainty. She didn’t need guarantees before moving forward or every possible outcome mapped out in advance. I envied that having spent most of my life craving certainty because certainty felt safe. If I knew what was coming, I could prepare for it and if I could prepare, maybe I could
protect myself.

That wiring had started years earlier in school corridors and locker rooms where unpredictability never felt exciting. It felt dangerous.

But somewhere along the Hume, uncertainty started to feel different. Not safe exactly, but possible.

The fresh start mattered more than I let on. I wanted Brisbane to work with a desperation I tried to disguise as excitement. I wanted jobs to appear quickly, a rental to be ready and  I wanted the move to become permanent before doubt had time to catch up with us.

“First thing’s jobs,” Monica said with a laugh. “Otherwise we’ll be broke in about five minutes.”

There it was again. Practical. Grounded. Real.

I focused back at the road as dawn spread over the hills beside the highway, washing everything in a soft blue-red light, and for the first time in years I let myself believe something might actually get better. Maybe distance really could change things.

Back at Mum and Dad’s place, the whole decision had happened ridiculously fast. After everything that’d gone on and feeling completely stuck, Mon and I ended up sitting at the kitchen table with an atlas trying to figure out where we could disappear to.

At first, the destination barely mattered.

“What about Darwin?” I’d asked.

“Too hot,” Mon said instantly.

“Perth?”

“Looks nice on TV.”

That was honestly the level of research we were working with.

Eventually Monica said, “What about Queensland? I’ve been there on holidays before. Loved it.”

“You mean Brisbane or the Gold Coast?”

“Nah, Brisbane,” she said confidently despite having absolutely no evidence to support the claim. “More jobs there.”

“What about Sydney?” I asked.

“No chance,” she said. “Too busy. And it’s expensive. We may as well stay in Melbourne.”

And somehow that settled it.

So we sat there staring at a map of Brisbane as though it magically explained our future. We didn’t know the suburbs, didn’t know where people lived or worked or even what areas were good or bad. But maps have a funny way of making uncertainty feel organised. Everything looks manageable from above.

“What do you reckon?” Mon asked eventually. “Should we?”

“Why not?” I said.

Not exactly a carefully considered plan, but honestly, if we’d overthought it, we probably never would’ve left. We would’ve found too many reasons to stay put, too many risks. Sometimes overthinking is really just fear pretending to be logic.

Within half an hour we’d decided. Brisbane.

Looking back now, I can see I misunderstood part of what we were doing. I thought I was leaving pain behind, like pain belonged to Melbourne and couldn’t cross borders. I thought Brisbane might somehow give me a clean slate.

That’s not really how it works, but I didn’t know that yet.

All I knew was Melbourne had become crowded with versions of me I didn’t know how to carry anymore. Brisbane felt blank, and blank felt hopeful.

The further north we drove, the lighter I started to feel. Open highways do that when you’re convinced you’re driving toward something better.

As we took turns at the wheel we talked about where we might live, what jobs we’d get and whether Brisbane would feel like home, but scattered amongst my hope was some fear. I worried Brisbane wouldn’t work out that we’d run out of money and have to crawl back to Melbourne embarrassed and defeated again. There was scant strength left in me for more failure

Deeper than all that though, there was another fear I couldn’t say out loud.

What if Brisbane worked and I still felt exactly the same?

That’s the part nobody wants to think about when they’re building their whole future around escape. You don’t want to admit the past might’ve packed itself into the car with you.

So instead, I focused on the road. Movement felt like progress, and at that point in my life I needed progress in any form I could manage.

When we finally reached Queensland, it honestly did feel different. The air felt warmer, the light seemed sharper somehow and even the roads helped. I didn’t have memories attached to every street corner yet, and that alone was a relief.

We found somewhere temporary to stay and began turning the move into a real life. There’s nothing glamorous about that part. Fresh starts sound romantic until you’re reading classifieds, filling out rental applications and trying to calculate whether you can afford petrol and groceries in the same week.

Still, there was energy in it. Every application felt like a small step forward. Every inspection felt like a possibility.

Within two weeks we’d found both. Jobs and somewhere to live.

I got a job working as an internal sales clerk for a packaging company. Not exactly dream-career material, but it was work. It was structure and gave shape to my days again.

Mon found work in payroll earning slightly more than me. We didn’t have much money that first year and some weeks were genuinely tight. There were nights  trying to work out whether we could afford takeaway or whether we needed that money for petrol instead.

But weirdly, those years still felt hopeful because for the first time in a long time, it felt like we were building something instead of just surviving.

And we’d made it out.

That mattered to me more than anything.

I wanted the move to mean I was fixed now. I wanted Brisbane itself to be the cure, but slowly cracks started appearing in that idea.

At work, even normal conflict rattled me. Customers getting frustrated , managers questioning something or internal disagreements. Nothing major, but my body reacted like danger had walked in the room because underneath it all, I was still carrying the same wiring I’d developed years earlier.

Conflict still made me panic. A sharp tone still made me shrink inside myself and criticism always felt personal.

I’d changed cities, but my nervous system hadn’t caught up yet.

That was the hard lesson Brisbane started teaching me. Changing your environment creates space, but it doesn’t automatically change you.

The move helped, more than I can explain, honestly. It gave me distance from the places where I’d fallen apart. It gave Mon and me something new to build together. It gave me room to breathe. But fear came with me. So did shame. So did all the survival habits I’d built over years without realising it.

At first, that felt disappointing. I thought the fresh start would feel fresher than it did, but over time I realised something important. The move wasn't healing. It was the beginning of healing.

Sometimes you need to leave before you’re capable of changing. Sometimes you need distance from the noise, the routines and the memories before you can hear yourself clearly again. But distance alone doesn’t do the work. You still take yourself with you.

Back then, I was carrying a lot.

Still, I’m grateful for that version of me sitting in the driver’s seat on the Hume Highway believing change was possible, even if he misunderstood what change actually required. Hope still got us moving, and sometimes movement comes first, long before understanding does.