My journey with addiction began in 1968 when I became dependant on alcohol, cannabis and amphetamines at a young age. Later I became addicted to heroin for 12 years. I finally went into recovery on 7th November 1985.

From then on, I have dedicated my life to working with addicts, alcoholics and their families. I began by studying with the Health Department Victoria completing an BACCUS (Basic Understaning of Substance Abuse) & CARE (Course in Assessment Referral and Education) course, then completed Victorian Counselling Course for Drug & Alcohol Worker at Victoria College, I further studied to become an NLP (Neuro Linguistics Programming) Practitioner, also completing Train the Trainer at the Council of Adult Education and finally a Graduate Diploma of Social Science (Drug Dependence) at Phillip Institute of Technology. I’m also recognised by Health & Community Services as a person of a ‘prescribed class’ to provide HIV counselling.

After that, I held various positions in primary health care institutions in Victoria, Australia. But it wasn’t enough. I often felt like the treatments didn’t align with what I had learned from doing rehab myself. It felt like there was a tremendous gap between the medical authorities and the experience of the addicts themselves.

That is when I decided to start my clinic. I formed the now-famous Hader Clinic in Melbourne in 1997. My vision had always been to create a program that would treat drug and alcohol problems holistically. After starting as a small counselling practise, we eventually grew into one of the country’s most respected addiction treatment centres.